The Adventures of Christiana Thomas
by Megan Sleevewillow
Summary: Christiana Thomas, Chris for short, is the Quartermaster of the Black Pearl. Being the quartermaster of that certain ship also includes many adventures that would send sane people screaming for their mothers. Set after "He's a Pirate." AU
1. A Christening

A/N: Hello everyone! This will be the only Author's Note for this entire story, mostly to provide information. This story is AU after the Curse of the Black Pearl, and also a sequel to my other fic "He's a Pirate" (read it!). If you're new to reading this, welcome, enjoy, and please review! If you've read this before, I have something to say to you.

I have gone through and edited The Adventures of Christiana Thomas – overhauling Chris' background and adding a couple new chapters. New chapters are marked with ampersands, and chapters that have been edited/changed heavily are marked with exclamation points. Go ahead, read, and enjoy!

Also, I made a website for The Adventures of Christiana Thomas with pictures, family trees, and a bit of a background. If you want to check it out, go to my Author's Page and click the homepage button.

And for a disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean and its characters belong to Disney, the songs found at the end of the chapters belong to the artists who wrote and sang them. The original characters and story, however, belong to me, and if you do anything with them, I will come to your house and I will cut yooooou!

Also, I do plan to do a sequel to this, but I'm going to write the entire thing before I post it. If you wish to read it, add me to your Author Alets!

Enjoy!

oOo

**Chapter One  
A Christening**

The first rays of sun spilled over the horizon and gently touched the _Black Pearl_, which gently bobbed up and down on waves that were the color of sapphires. The bowsprit of the winged woman with a dove was illuminated, as were the black sails, and the dark wood of the hull seemed somewhat lighter in the morning light. Within the cabin that lay beneath the forecastle, a prone woman was in bed. The peaceful look of one in slumber was upon her face, until a sharp rapping resounded throughout her cabin. Chris' eyes snapped open. They immediately moved to the porthole and saw the sun on the horizon and then scanned back to the door, which was budging from the knocks.

"Chris!" Captain Jack Sparrow stumbled in her door. He was wearing his usual white shirt, trousers, boots, and sash tied about his waist. His bandana was slightly askew as he came to a halt just inside the doorway. He turned to the woman. "Chris! I can't find my pistol!"

"Pistol?" Chris groaned and rubbed one of her eyes. "Why are ye coming to me with that complaint?"

"It's the one I shot Barbossa with – You know how I am about sentimental value." The pirate captain replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm. As he next spoke, he pointed an accusing finger at his quartermaster. "And ye, Thomas, were the last to see me conscious last night! I… I think." Jack tapped his chin in thought, his emerald ring glinting in the light from the porthole.

Chris inhaled deeply and thought back to the delightful rum soaked evening the night before. She didn't remember anything about Jack's pistol that seemed important to mention – until a glint of polished wood sticking from the sash at Jack's waist caught her eye. "Did you look in your sash?" She suggested innocently.

Jack looked down and saw the pistol's butt sticking from the brightly colored sash. He reached down and pulled the weapon out, inspecting it closely before replacing it. His mouth opened and closed once or twice before he replied, "Thank you. Wasn't so hard, was it?" With that, he walked back into the companionway, closing the door behind him.

Chris rubbed her eyes and contemplated staying abed for just five more minutes, but no, she might as well get up. She threw her covers off of herself, showing that she wore a white man's shirt, but nothing to cover herself other than that. Her cabin was not furnished richly or to any degree of fashion; at the foot of her bed there was a chest, a wooden screen for dressing was close to the porthole, and a desk with writing supplies on it sat right out of reach of the door when it opened. A small mirror hung above the desk, and that was the only decoration on the walls. Chris flipped open the top of her chest, tossed some clothing about, and pulled on a pair of canvas breeches that only reached to her mid-calf. She wore no shoes.

"Loki?" Chris called, turning back to her bed. A small brown monkey loped out from beneath the bed. His maw gaped in a yawn and then he looked up at her expectantly. The woman whistled and the monkey jumped onto her trouser leg, climbed up it and her shirt, and then perched on her shoulder. Loki contently sat there while Chris brushed her brown hair before pulling it back into a black and white damask bandana. She placed the brush in a drawer of her writing desk before crossing to her chest. She flung the clothes that had been tossed out in her search back inside and closed the top. She adjusted her breeches once more, making sure they weren't too tight, before leaving her cabin.

It was turning out to be a crisp, cold morning above. Chris did not need to leave the forecastle, for she was heading for the galley, but she could smell the briskness in the air from the open doorway at the top of the stairwell. She climbed the stairs and turned into the galley to find Cotton already at the huge pot over the cooking fire. The galley was a simple room containing a rough wooden table with benches on either side in the middle, counters, cupboards and barrels bordering the edges, and a large place for a cooking fire set away from the ship's side and in the middle. Smoked meats, fruit, and dried vegetables and herbs swung from the ceiling, but not low enough so that someone would hit their head on their future meal. Chris nodded to the helmsman and cook when she entered and Loki jumped onto the table, shrieking as he often did to rile up Cotton's Parrot.

"Barnacles on the bottom! Barnacles on the bottom!" Mr. Cotton's Parrot crowed, bobbing his head up and down and dancing from talon to talon. Chris grabbed Loki by the scruff of the neck and sat him back on her shoulder. The monkey seemed satisfied by the parrot's reaction, and on her shoulder he stayed. Cotton tossed Chris an apple, as he usually did in the morning. Chris was biting off pieces of fruit and feeding them to Loki as Jack walked in, humming a tune. His tricorn was now on, as well as his coat. Usually Jack took his breakfast in his cabin, but it was not uncommon for him to take the first meal of the day with his crew. "Mornin' Cot, monkey…" He took a banana from a bunch hanging from the ceiling, "And Loki."

"Very funny, Sparrow." Chris replied, her tone sounding tired. Morning insults were the usual form of greeting from her captain after nights when all had been into the rum. Jack laughed and cleared his throat before he sat down at the table as Cotton dished out steaming spoonfuls of burgoo into bowls. Burgoo was a mixture of oats and pretty much anything leftover from the previous meal, and was almost always accompanied with fresh-made biscuits.

As Cotton slid the bowls to Jack and Chris, the other members of the crew entered, talking loudly. Gibbs fell onto the bench beside Jack and Cotton gave the new arrivals their bowls. "Good morning, Jack," Gibbs began, accepting his bowl. "Glad to see yer up and at 'em after last night."

"Mr. Gibbs, you should know better than anyone here that the drink is no weakness for me." Jack said, watching Chris tap her biscuit against the table. A few weevils fell from it.

"Where be our next port?" Gibbs asked, tapping his own biscuit. Weevils always had a penchant for getting into the flour onboard, no matter what Cotton or anyone else tried to do to keep them away.

"It's a bit of a personal errand, Gibbs." Jack said, biting into his biscuit. His nose wrinkled and he stared back at the end of a weevil sticking from his biscuit. He chewed what was in his mouth and swallowed. "We're going to Port Royale." He informed his crew as he tapped his biscuit to free it of any other insects.

Chris choked on the biscuit that she was eating. "Weevils?" Anamaria asked before slapping Chris' back a few times. Chris shook her head and coughed the bit of biscuit into her hand before catching her breath.

"Thank you, Ana." Chris panted, tossing the biscuit piece into her burgoo. She then turned to her captain. "Jack, are you mad? Why are we going there?" She asked. Several of her crewmates looked to Jack for the answer as well.

"Will and Liz 'ad a baby!" Jack said jovially. "A letter arrived in Tortuga about a week ago fer me, tellin' me about it. Christening is in a couple o' days, and you and I are going." He returned to his food as if what he had said was unremarkable.

Chris' blue eyes narrowed. "I reckon I don't have a say in this, do I?" Chris asked.

Jack chewed his food. "No."

"And I suppose I can't say how incredibly crazy this is?"

"No."

"Or the fact that you, yourself, are crazy for even wanting to attend such a minor thing as a christening?" Chris added, turning to Anamaria for support. "When was the last time you were even in a church?"

"I am not going to dignify that question with a response." Jack smiled, a bit of biscuit in his teeth. "Also, this means you get to wear a dress during the duration of our stay. How can I say no? And think of the baby, Chris. The poor little baby." He feigned a look of innocence, but his smile spoke more than his words. He was enjoying this.

"How long are we staying?" Chris asked, slapping her palm to her face. She peeked between her fingers and asked. "And you do know the longer we stay in Port Royale, the more danger that puts the _Black Pearl_ and the crew in?"

"Calm down, calm down lass! We'll only be there about two days. Will said it was all right if we bunked with him and the family and we will drop anchor in a hidden cove. I've thought it all through, my rather questionable quartermaster. 'sides, I'm sure you'd love to go shopping for the latest fashions and perhaps take tea with those of your own kind." He was referring to the fact she came from a rather more distinguished background than your average pirate.

Jack had her, and Chris knew it. Besides, she'd never disobey an order from her captain. And while he hadn't verbally said, 'I order you to come with me,' it was clear he would if it came to that. "…I hate you, Sparrow."

"I know, love."

The next day, the _Black Pearl_ docked in the same hidden cove where, more than a year ago, the ship and its crew had taken William Turner aboard. Jack was immensely happy about the whole situation as he waited on deck for his quartermaster to return from getting dressed. Chris emerged from below in a simple tan dress, the sleeves long and the waist not at all constricted like those of higher fashion. An apron with a small pocket was tied about her waist.

"Wait there!" Jack commanded. Chris stopped and stood still as her captain circled her, his finger tapping on his chin in thought. "Hmm… Hmm…" He vocalized. Those looking on, like Marty and Gibbs, smiled as Chris' cheeks blushed. Sparrow never did let an opportunity go by to tease her. She didn't know why, but then again, she would do the same to him. "Look at that masculine frame, that mannish chest!" There were chuckles from up in the rigging as Jack came to a stop in front of the woman. He sighed and was about to speak until he looked down at her feet.

"Where are the shoes?" He asked, for Chris' feet were quite bare and tanned against the wood of the deck.

"Aw, come on Jack, don't make me –" Chris began. She never liked wearing shoes ever since she began sailing. They hindered her climbing in the rigging and were just uncomfortable once she became used to running amok barefoot.

"Shoes. Come on, we have to sell this or else I'll be hanging from the gallows." Jack snapped his fingers and Chris grumbled as she headed below once more. She returned a few moments later with the shoes on. "Stay right there!" Jack framed the woman with his fingers. "Perfect! I should have pursued a career in fashion."

Chris rolled her eyes and then set them upon her captain. He was still wearing his regular clothing and effects. "Captain…Ye're not wearing _that_, are you?"

"What?" He looked down at his pirate garb. "There's nothin' wrong with these! It makes me seem like a young rogue, back from a grand adventure."

"A rogue you may be, Captain Sparrow, but young you are not." That got some chuckles from Chris' crewmates, and made them even for the teasing before. "Norrington isn't _that_ stupid! Come!" She grabbed her captain's arm and pulled him into the forecastle and below to her cabin. Her chest lay open at the foot of her bed. She released her captain and dug through the chest until she found a pair of men's trousers, a shirt not unlike her own, and a jacket. "Put these on." She handed the clothes to him. He grinned saucily.

"Willin' to get a look at me any way ye can, eh Chris?" He asked with a wink.

"Don't flatter yerself. I already have come to the consolation that I'll have to burn those clothes when ye're done with them." She pointed to the screen and Jack headed behind it.

"Denial… is a harsh… mistress, Chris." Jack said as the sounds of him dressing and undressing came from behind the screen. He buttoned up his jacket when he emerged. He did not look much changed, especially since he still wore his tricorn and nothing could be done about his unruly dreadlocks, not to mention the adornment of beads and other materials braided into his hair. "I feel like an idiot."

At the sight of her captain looking like an uncomfortable fop with dreadlocked hair, Chris struggled to keep her face straight, but with his declaration, she lost the fight. She burst out giggling, and if she had been walking while doing so, she was certain she would have fallen down thanks to her shoes.

"Shut up." Jack grunted, striding towards the door.

"Wait, wait! I apologize, captain, but we must complete the ensemble."She went to her desk and from one of the drawers pulled out a length of navy blue ribbon. "Turn around." He did so and she took off his tricorn and bandana before pulling his dreads into as best a ponytail as possible and tying it in place with the ribbon. "Ye could actually pass for a regular man!" She declared, beaming as she admired her handiwork.

Jack looked into the small mirror and shuddered. "Let's go." He snatched his tricorn before opening the door and leading the way above, Chris following. They emerged from below and as the two crossed to the jolly boat that would take them ashore, there were many snorts to cover up laughter from the crew at Jack's appearance. The captain just scowled and jumped into the small boat. Chris flashed a grin at the crew before she stepped into the jolly boat as daintily as any refined lady would. "Since ye all find something so infinitely amusing, I want all the decks swabbed and shining white when we return!" Jack ordered. That took some of the grins away, and the jolly boat began its descent towards the water. As it was being lowered, Loki jumped from the bulkhead and into the jolly boat. He crawled onto Chris' shoulder and sat there, peering at Jack with a cocked head.

"Not him!" Jack said, his face pulling into a mask of distaste. "Not that bleedin' monkey!"

"He's coming." Chris said plainly, scratching the ape's chin. "Many fine ladies keep these little creatures."

"Well good for them, but what about you?" Jack asked. Chris ignored him. Once the jolly boat hit the water, the ropes were unhooked and Chris and Jack took up oars and rowed the jolly boat ashore. He and Chris then covered the jolly boat with some branches from nearby palm trees after stowing it next to some bushes at the tree line. Once that was done, they began the trek to Port Royale. As they walked the path that would lead there, Loki would jump from Chris' shoulder, disappear, and return minutes later with shiny objects that had been lost in the surrounding foliage by others before them. Chris soon had a good collection of coins and spare bits of jewelry to tuck into her apron pocket.

After about an hour's trek, the pair came in sight of the port of Port Royale. "Will said they had a house, up by Liz's dad's mansion. We just 'ave to find it, is all." Jack said, surveying the sprawling port.

"And how do you propose we do that?" Chris asked. "I think we should be as discreet as possible."

"I am sure that 'discreet' would be one of my many middle names if I had a middle name, Chris, and it pains me that you think I have no tact." Jack clutched his breast as though it hurt. "Follow me." The two walked down into the town center, amidst the open market stalls and speeding carriages. Many of the houses were made of white adobe, and the aura of the town seemed peaceful and cheerful. Jack ran into a distinguished looking gentleman, apologized, and when the man walked off, Jack had a silver topped cane. He looked through the crowds of people, Chris following close behind, until he spotted a young boy carrying a basket. As the boy walked past, Jack stopped him. "You there, lad, d'ya know where William Turner the blacksmith lives?"

"Aye." The boy replied, shifting the weight of the basket in his arms.

"Would ye take us there?" Jack queried, flashing a smile of gold and teeth.

"I can't, sir, I have a delivery to make." The boy fumbled with the basket once more.

Jack dug in the pockets of his clothes, but found nothing. "Ye got a coin on ye, love?" He asked Chris.

Chris dug into apron pocket and extracted one of the coins Loki had found. He chirruped reproachfully as she tossed it to Jack. "I'll make it up to ye, mate, don't worry." She soothed him, scratching his head.

"Ye show us the way, ye get this nice coin. Alright?" Jack asked. The boy nodded vigorously with the prospect of earning said coin.

"Follow me!" The boy shifted his basket to his other arm and led them through the crowd, out of the town center, traversed up various roads, and finally, he led them up to a fairly big house that was in sight of the governor's mansion. It was also made of the white adobe, was two stories tall, and had a grand entrance with two columns. A drive led down to the wide gate that the boy had led them to.

"Thanks, lad." Jack tossed the coin and the boy caught it before running off, almost stumbling and dropping the basket in his haste. Jack opened the gate and walked up the drive, using his stolen cane freely with Chris walking beside him. When they reached the door, Jack tapped on it using the top of the cane. "I feel like a right toff." He mentioned to Chris. There was the sound of some talking inside.

"I have it, Betsy, don't worry. Go attend to Elizabeth. Go, it is fine, really." The door swung open and William Turner was looking at the pirates on his front step. His face turned into a mask of surprise. "Jack!" He groped for Jack's hand and shook it before he turned to Chris. "And Chris!" He gave her a quick hug before opening the door wider. "Come on in!"

Jack and Chris entered a wide, open room with a single staircase curving around the inside of the room and leading to the second level. The floors were polished wood, as was most of the furniture. Paintings decorated the walls, and a small table with crystal glasses and a decanter of liquor sat by the fireplace. There was a rack with a musket and two swords hanging by the staircase and grand candelabra hanging from the ceiling.

"Nice place ye got here, Will…" Jack said, strolling deeper into the room. "Are you expecting the Queen anytime soon?"

Will laughed. "No. Governor Swann built and furnished it for Elizabeth and me when we were married. I think it is a bit much." He confessed before looking at both of his pirate friends and closing the door. "I can't believe you both are here."

"Well, we need to meet the newest addition of yer brood, don't we?" Jack asked, picking up a small statue that rested upon the fireplace mantle and examining the bottom.

Will gave Chris a look that said, _We'd best make sure that that's still here when you leave_, and she nodded. Will clapped his hands together and said, "Well, Elizabeth is upstairs with baby William, and so is Ali. She's actually been asking about Jack a lot lately."

"Well we shouldn't keep her waiting, should we?" Jack asked, replacing the statue atop the mantle. He turned and Will led the two up the staircase. As they reached the top, Loki jumped off of Chris' shoulder and scampered around a corner and out of sight.

"Loki!" Chris called after the ape, but he did not return.

"Don't worry," Will said, "It's only so big a house. He'll come find you eventually."

"I told you not to bring him," Jack whispered in Chris' ear. She shrugged hopelessly and Will opened the door to the first room they came across. They entered and found that it was Will and Elizabeth's bedroom. There was a large four poster bed with the curtains drawn back and a bassinet beside the bed. A dressing table with a large mirror sat in a corner, a wardrobe in another, and there was also a silk screen before what Chris assumed was Elizabeth's closet. Elizabeth was sitting up on the bed, Ali beside her, and a baby was in Elizabeth's arms.

"Christiana! Jack!" Elizabeth greeted as they entered. She sat up a bit straighter and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "How nice to see you!"

"Uncle Jack?" Ali asked, looking from the baby to Jack. Her face lit up brighter than torch doused in kerosene. She then let out a bellowing war cry of "UNCLE JACK!" She was like a cannonball as she bounced directly up from the bed and onto Jack in less than five seconds. The shock and speed of her attack knocked the pirate captain off of his feet.

"Ah! Attack of the four foot lass!" Jack yelled. He rolled over, but Ali stayed atop of him and on his back as he clawed at the carpet in a frantic move to escape. "I surrender! _Oh dear God help me, I surrender_!"

Will shook his head and beckoned Chris to the bedside, letting Jack deal with his daughter unaided. "This is our son. We've given him the name of William, like my father did to me." He said to the woman softly as Jack struggled to pull himself (with Ali attached) off of the floor. Elizabeth handed the baby to Will, who handed him to Chris. He had awakened with his sister's war cry and now peeked up from his wrappings drowsily. "We think we'll call him 'Liam' so he won't get confused with me."

Chris held Liam gently, as though he were easily breakable. His angelic pale face looked back up at her. He had dark black hair, like his father and the copper eyes of his mother. "He's a perfect little lad." Chris breathed to his parents. They smiled at the compliment.

Jack lumbered over, Ali on his back, and peered at the boy's face, his breathing heavy. "Let's just hope this one isn't a eunuch, eh Will?"

"Daddy, what's a eunuch?" Ali asked, her face popping over Jack's shoulder.

"Actually," Will said very loudly, "I believe lunch is ready. I can have them bring it up here so we can all eat together." Will disappeared for a few minutes, which involved Ali trying to rip Jack's hair out of his skull and Elizabeth, Chris, and Liam watching. Will returned with two servants bearing trays of food. The trays were set down on the dressing table and the servants curtsied and left the room. After the group had eaten a sumptuous lunch of roasted bird and soup, Jack was sitting back, resting his hand on his stomach when another servant entered.

"My lord and lady," She said, rising from a curtsey, "You have a visitor."

"Who is it?" Will asked, playing a game of keep-away with his napkin and Ali.

"Commodore Norrington."

Chris' eyes widened and Jack jerked so violently, his boot hit the dressing table and the empty trays fell to the floor with a clatter. "Hide!" Elizabeth commanded.

"Oh bollocks!" Chris stood before diving beneath Elizabeth and Will's bed. Jack, after picking up the trays, hid in the wardrobe. Will straightened the skirt of the bed as the servant looked at Elizabeth, confusion clearly written across her face.

"Show him in, and please, take Alice to her room. It's time for her nap." Will commanded.

"What about Uncle Ja—?" Chris heard Ali ask, but Will somehow silenced her and Chris watched as Ali and the servant's feet left the room. There were a few moments of silence and then Chris watched, her nose itching courtesy of the thick layer of dust underneath the bed, as someone wearing polished shoes entered.

"Good day, Mr. Turner, Mrs. Turner." She heard him say. Her breath caught in her chest as she recognized her brother's voice. "I came to see your new addition to your family and give you my best regards."

"Of course." Elizabeth said. Weight shifted on the mattress above Chris and she held her breath.

"What's his name?" Norrington asked. Chris could see his legs relax slightly.

"William." Elizabeth answered. "It's a family name; we decided to stay with it."

"Of course. He looks like you, Mr. Turner."

"Why thank you." Will replied. Chris' nose had begun to run, and now it was being tickled. _Damn dust!_ She thought. She needed to sneeze, but she couldn't. She couldn't sneeze, couldn't –

"_A-ACHOO_!"

She saw Norrington's legs snap into an attentive position from their formerly relaxed stance. "What was that?" She heard him ask. _Damn!_

Will's voice sounded nervous. "It was probably Ali. I told her to have her nap. She might have snuck past her nurse."

"Ah." His voice was doubtful.

Chris cursed silently at herself as her nose began to tickle again. Norrington continued to drone on about something concerning something else, and Chris noticed that something was running back and forth in the hallway. Every few minutes, a furry brown creature would run down the hall, dragging something, and Ali would chase after it. _Loki_… Norrington, Elizabeth, and Will were oblivious to what was happening in the hallway until something crashed and broke. Chris felt weight shift off the bed as Ali's wails filled the hall, and she saw Norrington's and Will's legs hurry out the door.

Chris quickly slid from under the bed, her dress covered dust. She tripped over her shoes and cursed. Elizabeth stood from her bed, a bit shaky, and placed Liam into the bassinet. "Ye might want to clean under there, for future reference, Elizabeth." Chris mentioned as Elizabeth hurried her behind the silk screen.

"Be quiet, he doesn't suspect anything!" Elizabeth hissed. Chris didn't know about that, but she hid against the many clothes that hung inside the screen as Elizabeth bounded back to her bed, pulling the covers over herself just as Norrington and Will walked in. Chris could see through the small slats between the segments of the screen. Will was carrying Ali, who was looking upset and huffy, and Norrington was following, carrying a screeching Loki by the tail.

"She's fine, she just broke a vase." Will said, rocking his daughter in his arms, but he looked tense. His eyes kept straying to Loki and the skirt of the bed.

"This… creature was chasing after her." Norrington said. "He does look awfully familiar, doesn't he?"

Loki screeched and whipped his head around, sinking his teeth into Norrington's hand. The Commodore yelled and began shaking his arm wildly, trying to free himself of the monkey. Loki released his bite and fell to the floor. He sniffed the air before catapulting behind the screen. He rushed up Chris' leg and onto her shoulder, letting out a chitter of joy. _Damn, damn, damn!_ Chris cursed silently.

"I'll get that beast!" Norrington declared, drawing his sword and charging for the screen. Chris had never seen his face that shade of red before.

"Commodore! Calm yourself!" Will said, placing Ali on the bed, but it was too late. Norrington charged behind the screen, coming face to face with Chris. She narrowly dodged his sword's blade as he came to a halt.

Norrington's mouth opened in shock and his sword clattered to the floor. "Christiana!" He exclaimed, his tone full of incredulousness.

She smiled and shrugged. "Sorry James." Chris grabbed him by the shoulders before kneeing him in the groin and then throwing him against the screen. It collapsed forward and Norrington found himself swallowed by Elizabeth's clothes for the moment. Chris shot forward and pulled open the door of the wardrobe. Jack tumbled out, his hair free from the navy blue ribbon.

"What happened?" Jack demanded, holding his hat to his head. His cane was clutched in the other hand.

"Our trip has been cut short." Chris replied briskly. Jack pulled himself to his feet and the two pirates stood in front of the Turner family.

"Well…" Jack said, looking at the collapsed screen. The clothes were surging forward as Norrington tried to free himself. Jack bobbed his hat. "Cheers!" He grabbed Chris' elbow and pulled her from the room. They raced down the stairs, Loki screeching from Chris' shoulder the entire way, and they burst out the front door to the drive. The Commodore's carriage was waiting with two brown horses and about four soldiers.

"**Stop them**!" They looked up and saw that Norrington had opened a window above and was half hanging out, shouting and brandishing a pistol. "They're **PIRATES**!"

The four soldiers un-shouldered their rifles, but Jack was quicker. He used his cane to knock three of the four out, while Loki pounced on the last one and clawed at his face. Chris worked on freeing the horses while Jack "persuaded" the driver to step down. Chris hurriedly unhitched the geldings and jumped onto one of them, Jack following suit.

"Loki!" Chris whistled as Norrington fired his pistol at them, the bullet shots making the horses skittish. Loki jumped off of the soldier and onto the horse's rump, scrambling up to the mane.

"Someone! Stop them!" Norrington shouted once more, but his pleas were fruitless. Jack and Chris spurred their horses and galloped down the drive and various streets back to the town center. The knowledge of them being pirates somehow reached the soldiers in the town center (or maybe it was the fact they were riding a pair of naval horses and were obviously not naval sailors. Also, Chris was a woman) and several shots were fired in the air, causing innocent bystanders to duck and scream. Jack used his cane to his full extent, destroying several market stands in the process by breaking supports. Within minutes, the pair had made it out of the town center and their horses were racing down the path they had traveled by foot earlier.

When they arrived at the cove, they abandoned the jolly boat and the horses, opting instead to dive into the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. Several members of the crew were swabbing the decks, not noticing the return of their captain and quartermaster until they climbed the aboard, dripping wet. "Set sail! We have soldiers on our tail!" Jack commanded.

The crew on deck sprung up immediately, not asking any questions as they began to make preparations to become underway. Chris helped pull up the anchor and even climbed into the rigging in her dress until they had sailed a good distance from Port Royale. When things calmed down, she finally changed back into her trousers and shirt before returning above deck to the bridge. Jack stood at the wheel, guiding his ship expertly.

"When am I gettin' me clothes back from yer cabin?" Jack asked, looking anything but comfortable in his formal garb. He had unbuttoned the jacket to catch any passing breezes.

"As soon as you please." Chris answered, stretching her bare toes out on the warm deck. "Does this mean we won't be going back to visit for a while?" She asked, smiling teasingly.

"Seeing as I have stirred up the soldiers once more, Norrington wants to skin me alive, and I destroyed some of Port Royale's market stands, I say there is a fair chance that we won't be going back anytime soon." The captain paused. "I guess."

Chris laughed. "I thought as much."

Jack adjusted his bearings on the helm. "Thanks for comin' with me, Chris. Ye're a good friend."

"I went for Will and Liz, not for you." Chris responded in a cantankerous fashion. "Well, that and seeing ye dress like a toff."

"Like I said Chris, denial is a harsh mistress." Jack replied, throwing her a coy look.

Chris smiled. "Ye're a good friend too."

"Oh please, stop it before I make meself sick!" Jack bellowed. Chris laughed and headed for the top. "Oi!" Jack called as she began climbing into the rigging. She turned back to look at her captain and he smiled, sweeping his hat from his head. "Always good to half ye by me side in a scrap, Thomas." He said before plunking his hat back onto his head.

Chris returned his grin. "Likewise, Sparrow." With that, she climbed into the rigging and the _Pearl_ sailed into the east.

oOo

Ooh. you make me live  
Whatever this world can give to me  
It's you, you're all I see  
Ooh, you make me live now honey  
Ooh, you make me live

You're the best friend  
That I ever had  
I've been with you such a long time  
You're my sunshine  
And I want you to know  
That my feelings are true  
I really love you  
You're my best friend

Ooh, you make me live

I've been wandering round  
But I still come back to you  
In rain or shine  
You've stood by me girl  
I'm happy, happy at home  
You're my best friend.

You're the first one  
When things turn out bad  
You know I'll never be lonely  
You're my only one  
And I love  
The things that you do  
You're my best friend

Ooh, you make me live.

I'm happy, happy at home  
You're my best friend  
You're my best friend  
Ooh, you make me live  
You, you're my best friend.


	2. The Spanish Ship

**Chapter Two  
The Spanish Ship**

Chris sighed as she began to clean one of the many cannons aboard the _Pearl_ with a rag and a brush. She had said something to anger Jack earlier that day, and this was her punishment. She had actually said several things, one concerning his way of wenching, the next concerning his drinking, and eventually the entire conversation just got out of hand. She regretted it as she reached into her current cannon with the brush, working it around to break up any caked on cannon dust. Not only did Chris regret her actions because she never liked it when Jack was angry at her, but also because now she had to clean the cannons in the stifling and dark holds as opposed to being above deck with the fresh air and sunshine.

The woman extracted the brush and took the rag from the top of the barrel. She reached deep into the barrel of the cannon and pulled up flakes of cannon dust, all black, and let them fall into a bucket. She continued pulling all of the flakes from the bottom of the barrel before she grabbed her brush and plunged it inside once more. Loki watched her from the barrel of an already cleaned cannon, gnawing on a nut as he did so. Chris finished cleaning the cannon and wiped the sweat off of her forehead. She counted down the row of awaiting cannon and groaned.

"Fifteen!" She turned and looked at Loki and, joking, asked, "Can you give me a little help, mate?"

Loki screeched, clutched his nut, and ran to the stairwell and then clamored up the steps. Chris cursed and walked to the next cannon. She cleaned it the same as with the cannon before, and by ten cannons to go, her arms and the breast of her shirt had become completely covered in soot. The brush's bristles were caked with powder and the rag was pretty much totally black. By five cannons to go, the sun had almost set and Chris' arms were aching from scraping the rag down into the barrel.

"How ye doing down 'ere?" Chris heard someone descend the stairs as the sun disappeared on the horizon. Jack walked in, his boots clunking on the floor and a coin being played with by his fingers. "Lookin' good, love." Jack said, observing her blackened shirt and arms. "And I suppose ye'll be happy to know we'll be dockin' in Tortuga next."

"Why?" Chris asked, reaching down into the barrel of her current cannon, the scent of gunpowder filling her nose. "We're good for supplies, I've checked."

"We're takin' on new crew members there; we just have to get Gibbs to round some up." Jack replied, watching her. "I thought ye'd be happy to know ye'd get a nice lay me down after this, that is, if ye finish." He paused and then said, "If only yer name were Pearl, ye'd really be a black pearl." He chuckled at his own joke.

Chris ignored the joke. "New men? That's good. Then you can have someone else clean your bleedin' cannons." She pulled her arms from the cannon and tried to wipe them clean with the black rag. It made them worse.

"Actually, I thought I'd make it yer permanent duty to clean 'em." Jack grinned at her.

Chris stopped and glared at him. "You make that my permanent duty, I'm gettin' off this blasted ship and ye can have Marty as yer quartermaster."

Jack's grin stayed in place. "Nah. He doesn't look quite as good in a dress as you do."

"Thanks for the compliment." Chris sighed.

In Tortuga, Chris went with her captain, Gibbs, and Anamaria to the Faithful Bride, their favorite tavern. She still smelled of gun powder, and her face had smudges of black on it, but it did not matter to either her crewmates or the populace of Tortuga, or Chris for that matter. Jack bought them all a round of rum, and they talked over what to do after they took on new crew members at their corner table.

"We need more information about merchants or treasure ships from the Spanish." Anamaria argued. "Last I checked, we were pirates. We need to do what pirates do."

"Nah, I say Navy ships. Less of them there are the better." Gibbs replied. "Maybe it'll make them treat us with more respect!" There were some cheers of 'Hear, hear!' from a nearby eavesdropping table.

"Why don't we just lay low for a little bit?" Chris suggested. "Winter is comin' anyways; we could just start sauntering towards Madagascar."

"About three months ahead of schedule?" Jack laughed and took a long swig of his rum. "No, I don't think so Chris. Here is what me plan is." He leaned in conspiratorially towards the center of the table, causing his crewmates to do the same. His voice was low as he said, "I have gotten news through an old mate in Cuba that a Spanish ship with three tons of gold bound from South America is going to be within passing distance of Maisi in a few days. Maisi is only inhabited by natives, if that, so we won't have any problems from them. We hide in nearby cove until the ship is in sight, and then we do a sudden attack, swooping in, grappling them, and boarding them before those Spaniards have time to think, and boom!" He slapped his hand on the table, making Chris and Gibbs jump. "We end up with six-thousand pounds of gold." He leaned back, a satisfied look on his face, and drained the rest of his rum. He wiped his mouth and set the mug down. "What do ye say to that?"

Gibbs, Chris, and Anamaria looked at each other, stunned at not only the information that their captain had garnered, but also at his plan which sounded very well put together. Well, as far as Jack's plans, anyway. Gibbs nodded his head. "It's a good plan, Jack."

"Do we 'ave an accord, then?" Jack questioned.

His crewmates looked back at him and replied, "Aye!" before they grabbed their mugs, clunked them together, and threw down the rest of their rum.

"Another round!" Jack called.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny. Gibbs turned up at the docks with around a dozen men and one or two adolescent boys, all willing to sign onto the legendary _Black Pearl_. Jack, carrying a banana, inspected them. He would walk down the line of men, stop in front of one of them, look them over, and then turn on his heel and continue. Gibbs and Chris stood on either side of the men, Gibbs at the gangplank leading to the _Pearl_, Chris at the beginning of the pier. Their arms were folded as they watched their captain.

Finally, Jack seemed to accept the sailors before him. "…The real question here, you lot, is will you remain true in the face of danger and all well certain death?" He finished after a long winded and obscure speech, pacing back and forth in front of them.

There were some murmurs of "Aye" or "Yeah." The sailors shuffled from foot to foot and didn't look very confident in their answers.

"Mayhap you didn't hear me." Jack said, raising his voice. "Will you remain true in the face of danger and all well sudden death? Answer me you dogs!"

"Aye!" The men straightened up as they bellowed their assent.

Jack smiled. "Good. See to Mr. Gibbs the first mate, and you may board." All of the men started walking towards where Gibbs waited, and Chris joined Jack as he followed the end of the group of sailors. Jack suddenly drew his sword, though, and pulled a tall, skeletal man with a hat pulled down low, and a short, squat man with his hat also pulled low from the end of the line. Jack raised his sword in the air so that the end was almost touching the squat man's chest. "'Ello, Pintel. Ragetti." Jack said. Chris had no idea what he was on about, but she had her pistol cocked and ready once Jack had drawn his sword.

"Told you 'e'd recognize us!" said the tall man to the squat.

"Shut up!" The squat man muttered, elbowing his friend in the side. With his sword, Jack whipped off both of their hats so that their faces were plainly in view. The squat man had a bald spot, but other than that, his hair and beard was long and gray. The tall man had straw colored hair, and Chris noticed something odd about one of his eyes. As she peered closer, she saw it was made of wood.

"Why in the blazes are you two tryin' to get on my ship?" Jack demanded, his sword now at the squat man's throat.

"Pinters said we needed work." The tall man said, knuckling his eyebrow. "He said ye wouldn't recognize us." Chris gathered that 'Pinters,' the squat man, must be Pintel and this tall lanky man must be Ragetti.

"Shut up!" Pintel scowled, slapping the back of Ragetti's head. There was a strange popping sound and Ragetti's eye flew from his head, right to Chris' feet. Ragetti fell to his knees and grabbed it, his fingers accidentally clawing Chris' foot in haste. "Sorry." He apologized before standing and popping the eye back in his head. Chris felt faintly ill.

Chris thought the names sounded familiar but with the display of the wooden eye, she immediately placed the two in tales that Jack had told her. "Aren't these two of the nutters who committed the mutiny on you?" She asked.

"Aye." Jack responded, his sword point nearing Pintel's flesh. The man had begun sweating profusely. "The question now is what do we do with them?"

Pintel began to talk very fast. "Captain Sparrow, we thought yeh'd let us on. Ever since we've escaped the soldiers at Port Royale, we 'aven't been signed on any ships, and the mutiny was all Barbossa's idea, Rags and I really like you." Pintel took a deep breath. Ragetti wasn't listening; he had found something shiny in his coat pocket and was playing with it.

Jack tapped a finger on his chin in thought. He looked at Chris, as if querying what to do, before speaking. "All right ye two. I'm putting you under Chris' command. I remember ye being fair sailors, and the on'y reason I'm lettin' ye on at all is that. But if she begins to suspect anything at all, it's over the side with you two. She is the quartermaster of this ship and will take no guff from ye. Understand?" Pintel and Ragetti nodded vigorously and Jack sheathed his sword. "Chris, ye tell 'em what tasks to do, and don't hesitate to punish 'em if need be." He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "And don't turn yer back on Pintel. Use brute force if needed." He pulled away and winked before heading up the _Pearl_'s gangplank. Chris turned to her charges, the disgruntled looking Pintel, and Ragetti, who was still playing with a shiny object.

"Follow me." She commanded, and followed Jack's retreating back onto the _Pearl_. She heard them shuffle their feet behind her as she led them to the poop deck. She had a good idea of a starting task for the pair. "Wait here." She wasn't too nervous about leaving them alone on the poop deck; all the sailors in the rigging above would have full sight of them as they made sail from Tortuga. She returned a few minutes later with holystones and other swabbing materials.

"Swabbing the decks?" Pintel's jaw dropped. "Ye've got to be kidding me! We're seasoned sailors worth twice our weight in salt –"

"Do ye usually argue with yer commanding officer, you dog?" Chris raised her voice so the other sailors would not have trouble hearing her, not to mention Pintel and Ragetti. Pintel didn't seem to have expected that she would do such a thing, for he cringed as she continued speaking. "Or would you rather feel my cat o' nine of your back? If I say that ye'll swab the deck, ye'll swab it! If I want you to clean the head, ye'll scrub it until it's so pristine one could eat off of it! Is that **clear**?"

"A-aye, quartermaster. Aye!" Pintel nodded furiously and took up his holystone and a bucket before shedding his coat and beginning to swab the deck. While he did it furiously, as one who was afraid of being whipped would do, his partner Ragetti did it more leisurely, with a smile on his face.

"We're finally pirates again, Pinters!" He declared, dipping a brush into a bucket of water. He scrubbed his patch of deck with enthusiasm, while his friend slowed down eventually and began swabbing resolutely, but not with any amount of happiness. Chris grabbed a broom herself and worked on sweeping the water into the scuppers so that it would not make the deck slick. Jack had told her to keep an eye on Pintel, and she could see why. He'd be the brains of anything fishy, as Ragetti didn't look, or act, particularly intelligent.

As Ragetti swabbed, he looked up at her and asked, "Yer name is Chris?"

"Aye." Chris answered, sweeping some excess water and soap to the scuppers. "Short for Christiana. Chris rolls off the tongue easier."

"I don't know many lay-dees with the name of Chris… None at all, as a matter o' fact. 'Cept you now, o' course. Pinters knows lay-dees though, lots of them." Pintel's chest puffed out in pride until the next remark, "But they don't seem to like him much." It then promptly deflated and Pintel glowered at his friend as he continued. "Pinters is the good one with the lay-dees, though. But I'm good at swabbing the decks." Ragetti dipped his brush once more and scrubbed at a tar spill before continuing. "But the lay-dees don't seem to like me, neither."

Chris smiled gently. While she didn't quite trust Pintel or Ragetti, another person's luck with the opposite sex was nothing to make fun of when it was bad, unless said person thought themselves a lothario. "Some lasses just don't know a good thing when it's in front of 'em is all." Pintel looked up at the quartermaster and his chest regained a small amount of prideful puff.

"Nuh, I don't fink so." Ragetti wiped his nose with his sleeve. "They don't like me eye." The wooden eye suddenly swiveled around on its own accord. Ragetti slapped the side of his head and it halted its swiveling.

Chris was finding the one eyed man very amusing, and even was taking a bit of a shine to him, but Loki suddenly came scampering up from the wheel, a piece of paper in his paws. Ragetti eyed the monkey warily as it leapt onto Chris' shoulder and gave her the piece of paper. The woman unfolded it to see that it was a note from Jack.

"Stay with the nitwits. Don't let them out of your sight just yet. And this monkey is actually bloody useful as a messenger.

CJS."

Chris smiled softly and tucked the note into the back pocket of her trousers. She stroked Loki's back for a moment before continuing to sweep the water from the decks. Ragetti kept looking at Loki, and Chris asked, "What ye staring at him for?"

"Nuffing." He responded and then scrubbed the deck a bit harder. "It's just that Captain Barbossa's monkey was mean to be. I don't quite like 'em."

"He couldn't 'elp it that he was a crafty bugger, you just didn't like him because he stole yer eye too many times." Pintel grunted from where he was grinding the deck with the holystone.

"Well, Loki is no different really." Chris said, scratching behind her monkey's ears. "But he's actually a nice monkey. He may give you a bit of Hell, but it's just in his nature, it is."

"I don't know…" Ragetti kept throwing reproachful looks at Loki between swabs and as the sun set, the deck shone white as new snow. Chris watched until the last rays of the sun disappeared over the horizon, and she swept the last bit of water from the deck. The bell calling the last dog watch rang out.

"Time to eat." She announced. She flipped the broom, up so that the head hung over the shoulder Loki did not ride upon. "Pick up yer buckets and brushes and follow me." They went below and stowed the swabbing supplies into the supply room before heading above to the galley. Most of the crew had already arrived and were eating loudly when the three entered. Chris accepted her chunk of meat and biscuit and sat across from Jack, who had joined his crew for dinner instead of taking it privately. Ragetti and Pintel received their own food and sat across from each other at the end of the table.

Jack was talking to one of the two teenage boys that had been brought aboard at Tortuga. This one had longish brown hair and eyes that were a striking blue-green color. The boy was rapt with attention as his new captain came to a conclusion. "…And that is how I discovered Poseidon's Peak." Jack finished. The boy was staring at Jack wide eyed in amazement. Jack caught Chris' eye and gave her a wink before launching into another one of his tales.

The _Black Pearl_ sailed on for three days towards the eastern coast of Cuba. Chris watched Pintel and Ragetti while they swabbed the remaining decks and didn't sleep until they had gone below with the other crew members. At dawn, she was awake and waiting for them. While it was entertaining listening to Ragetti and his thoughts on life and anything else that struck his fancy, she was beginning to find being their nanny tedious. By the fourth day out of Tortuga, they arrived at Maisi and ducked into a cove to the north. It was one day before the Spanish ship was due to sail by. Chris was assigned to the middle and morning watch that night, as well as Pintel and Ragetti. They went to their hammocks and Chris her cabin to sleep until the bell announced the middle watch. They then crawled from their warm beds to above deck, where they were greeted by the cold night air.

Chris took her position on the bridge, hugging her arms to her body against a cold, biting wind that was blowing from the west. The wind would make the Spanish ship be able to sail along smoothly. Chris just hoped their sailing wouldn't be too smooth and allow them to slip by unnoticed. She was looking toward the north by northwest horizon for any signal against the stars that the Spanish ship was there. Since the _Black Pearl_ had a black hull and sails, it could sail during the night undetected if all of the lights were doused, as they were tonight. The Spanish ship would not be able to see them unless they were looking for them and possessed really good eyes.

"Blimey, it's cold out." Ragetti mumbled as the night wore on. He was standing near Chris on the bridge with Pintel at the helm. Only one anchor had been dropped so that, in the case of spotting the ship, it would be raised with haste and the _Pearl_ could swoop in and catch her prey without too much to-do.

"Ye said it." Chris hugged her arms tighter around her body. She usually rolled up her sleeves for warm weather, but now the sleeves were rolled down past her thumbs. Her trousers were not her long ones, but the ones that only reached halfway down her calf, and of course, she was barefoot. "I just hope this bleeding watch isn't in vain, 'specially if I get frostbite." It was a joke, but hey, stranger things had happened.

"It's okay poppet." Ragetti said. He took off his coat and placed it about her shoulders. It smelled faintly of animals, but the warmth from him wearing it immediately made Chris much more comfortable. "Better poppet?" He asked, tugging the coat snugly around her.

Chris felt a wave of gratitude towards him. She was certainly beginning to like this kind, simple man with the wooden eye. "Thanks, Ragetti."

"Don't mention it. I was beginnin' to sweat anyway."

The next hour ticked by slowly. Chris and Ragetti tried to keep up a conversation, but it fell silent after a few flat jokes. Loki found his owner and hopped onto her shoulder before shrieking at Ragetti, causing the sailor to stumble in alarm and trip onto the deck with a loud thud. Loki eventually curled up on Chris' shoulder with his tail around her neck and his head resting on his paws before promptly falling asleep.

Chris was ready to fall asleep herself when suddenly she saw the outline of a ship on the north-western horizon. She could tell even from the distance that it was huge, thrice wider than the _Black Pearl_, but that would mean it wasn't as fast or as agile as the _Black Pearl_ either.

"Ragetti." Chris said in a low voice. He jumped at the break in the silence. She handed him his coat back and said, "Wake the captain. Take Pintel with you."

Ragetti left the bridge and returned a few minutes later with Jack, who was bearing a long glass. Even though he must have been woken by Pintel and Ragetti, he was fully dressed and alert. "What did you see?" He asked, fighting a yawn. Chris silently pointed to the ship on the horizon that was sailing leisurely, not using the wind to its full advantage. Jack held up his long glass to his eye and looked at the ship. When he withdrew the long glass, he said, "The flag is Spanish. So is the name, _Adelita_." He smiled with glee at the prospect of capture. "That's our ship. Wake the rest, silently."

Chris, Ragetti, and Pintel slowly and quietly made their way below to the hold where the common sailors slept, rousing every one of them from their hammocks. Most of the crew assembled below decks, readying the cannons. Chris strapped on her rapier and pistols, for the quartermaster led the boarding party and she would need to be armed well. Loki had roused and was perching defiantly on Chris' shoulder as though he anticipated a fight.

Slowly, the ship loomed out of the darkness, growing in size as it came closer. The anchor was raised, but the _Black Pearl_ made no move. Jack waited and waited until the _Adelita_ had almost passed the cove and then with a signal from him, the sails were raised and billowed with the breeze. The _Black Pearl _surged forward silently, undetected by the Spanish ship. Jack gracefully directed his ship broadside beside the _Adelita_, and that was when the shout came from decks that there was another ship. The pirate crew threw their grappling hooks across, securing the _Adelita_ to the _Pearl_. Chris threw a gangplank between the two ships for those who would not swing over, and with her rapier brandished, she led the way, followed closely by Anamaria, Marty, Pintel, Ragetti, and Jack once he had left the helm.

Jack's method of pirating was much gentler than some. He tried to secure the ship by hurting as few as possible, and usually the prize ship would surrender before things went this far. This time, the Spaniards clashed with the pirates with angry shouts and curses. Chris first crossed swords with a cocky young lieutenant and within minutes, there was gunfire and screams of the dying. Gibbs, on the _Black Pearl_, ordered those below to pepper the _Adelita_, and cannon fire and smoke filled the air. Loki leapt from his mistress' shoulder and disappeared.

Chris was still clashing with the Spaniard lieutenant when she saw Jack knocking several of the Spanish sailors overboard. She knocked the cutlass from the lieutenant's hand and shoved him overboard. She picked up his dropped cutlass and took it with her as Loki leapt from her shoulders and into the rigging of the _Adelita_. Jack looked at his quartermaster from where he was dueling with the captain and shouted between blows, "We have it handled up here Chris! Go find the gold before they can do something like throw it overboard!" The Spaniards **would** do something like that to keep the riches from the hands of the pirates, and so she needed to move quickly.

Chris sheathed the Spaniard's cutlass, though her rapier's scabbard could barely hold it. She headed below decks, not encountering another soul until she came to a heavy set of double doors, by which sat two brass monkeys, cannon balls piled high on each. She opened them and found four conquistadors in full armor, swords at the ready, standing before a chained door. "Oh bollocks." If that was where the gold was being kept, Chris was certainly outnumbered. The conquistadors had noticed their advantage as well.

The first lunged towards her and she blocked his blow, pulling the cutlass from her sheath and crossing both rapier and cutlass before her. She kicked the man off of her and advanced, but then she found that two of the others had skirted around her, blocking her escape. The other two joined in to corner her. They relentlessly sliced at her and she blocked their blows with all the fervor she could muster. Chris was deep in the mire and they knew it.

"Sparrow, HELP!" Chris screamed, praying that anyone would hear her, not just Jack, but that was a slim chance. He and the others were several decks above her, fighting for their lives. One of the conquistadors struck a pose and said something in Spanish, mocking Chris. The others laughed and the mocking conquistador moved towards her, his sword raised. As he went to slash at Chris, a cannon ball was suddenly chucked at him, but it fell slightly short. It hit the wooden deck and caused it to splinter. Several more cannon balls followed in short order, falling down upon the conquistadors like a deadly leaden rain.

Chris looked behind the armored Spaniards and saw that Pintel and Ragetti were chucking them from the brass monkeys. After the mocking conquistador's foot was crushed, the other conquistadors yelled out that they surrendered and Chris, Pintel, and Ragetti tied them up with rope from the nearby supply room. As they did so, Jack sauntered down the stairs, looking very pleased with himself.

"What happened here?" He asked looking at the cannon balls littered all around the tied conquistadors. Once he was told, he said, "Good job, Pintel and Ragetti. I was getting tired having to save Chris' hide all the time." Jack smirked and Chris just smiled, glad she hadn't been skewered by the conquistadors. With the Spaniards tightly secured, Chris sighed and sheathed her rapier but kept the cutlass out, as she didn't have a place to put it. With the help of the cutlass, the chain on the door was broken and she, Jack, Pintel, and Ragetti entered the treasury of the _Adelita_.

Inside were bags and chests of gold that were almost bursting with riches. The gold was mostly in ingots, but there were some coins. Jack ran his fingers greedily over a chest that held said coins before clapping his hands together. "Get the others so we can haul this to the _Pearl_." He commanded Pintel and Ragetti. When they had left, the captain turned to his quartermaster and said, "We did it Chris. We did it!" Before taking up a handful of coins, casting them into the air, and watching them rain down upon the deck in glee.

For several hours afterward, the crew of the _Black Pearl_ hauled bag after bag and chest after chest of golden coins and ingots past the bound and gagged sailors of the _Adelita_, and Loki was found inside a chest, burrowed deep into the golden coins within. Once the last bag was aboard the _Black Pearl_, Jack bade a good day to the Spanish sailors and set them off in a jolly boat for the shore of Cuba. Gibbs, as first mate, took control of the _Adelita_, and the two ships pointed their bows toward Tortuga to sell off the Spanish ship and enjoy the rewards of their toil.

"I would not want to be in their shoes." Chris observed as she watched the jolly boats of Spanish sailors row for the coast. "I'm sure their king is going to be more than a bit upset, not only at them but at you."

Jack chuckled. "I know." He and Chris continued watching the jolly boat row away until Jack said, "Pintel and Ragetti passed their test. You may assign them to duties other than swabbing the decks." He turned to head to the helm.

"Test?" Chris echoed, turning to her retreating captain. He turned back to her as she asked, "What test?"

"I wasn't sure if they'd be backstabbers or no, Chris, which is why I placed them with you." Chris went to say something but Jack stopped her. "There was a reason the crew elected you quartermaster, Chris. Ye're fair, and I knew if anyone could win their loyalties, it'd be you. When they bludgeoned those conquistadors, I saw that you had done exactly what I expected." Chris smiled at the praise and her captain grinned. "Go and tell the lads the good news."

Chris saluted her captain and went to find Pintel and Ragetti. After the excitement of the day, they were halfheartedly heading down to the supply room to get the swabbing supplies. "Oi, mates!" Chris called, causing them to stop. She joined them and said, "Ye are relieved of your swabbing duty."

Both sailors let out sighs of joy. "Finally!" Pintel exclaimed.

Ragetti practically bounced on his heels and said, "We're on our way, Pinters! We're back on the way to bein' pirates again!"

Chris smiled at her new friends. "I'll send you to Anamaria for your watches later. But for now, let's have some rum to celebrate."

oOo

My boat's by the tower, and my bark's on the bay,  
And both must be gone at the dawn of the day.  
The moon's in her shroud, and to light thee afar  
On the deck of the daring's a love lighted star.  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be,  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be,

So forgive me my rough mood unaccustomed to sue  
I woo not, perhaps, as your landlubbers do.  
My voice is attuned to the sound of the gun  
That startles the deep when the combat's begun.  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be,  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be

The Frenchman and Don will flee from our path,  
And the Englishmen cower below at our wrath,  
And our sails shall be gilt in the gold of the day,  
And the sea robins sing as we roll on our way.  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be,  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be

A hundred shall serve - the best of the brave,  
And the chief of a thousand shall kneel as thy slave,  
And thou shalt reign queen, and thy empire shall last  
Till the black flag by inches, is torn from the mast.  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be,  
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee,  
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be


	3. Melody

**Chapter Three  
Melody**

The _Black Pearl_ bucked up and down on the wild waves created by the hurricane. The sea was a froth of gray, and the clouds above were wisps of lead colored cotton. The ship was pressed between these two gray Goliaths and fighting for its very survival. Chris was up above in the rigging, making sure that the taught sails did not loosen under any circumstances. With her was Athos, the brown haired, green-blue eyed boy who wasn't much younger than Chris that Jack had taken under his wing. The pair was drenched in sea- and rain-water and their clothing was plastered to their skins. Pintel and Ragetti were running around on the deck below, tending to any fraying lines. Anamaria and Marty were higher up in the top, tending to their own sails. Jack was at the wheel with Gibbs, fighting to make the _Pearl_ stay upright.

"Brace yourself, mate!" Chris yelled as a huge wave spilled over the side of the ship. The _Pearl_ rocked so violently that Athos slipped and fell towards what surely would have been a painful if not fatal landing, but Chris' hand shot out at the last minute. She grabbed the young by the back of his shirt and pulled him back up besides her. He clutched the yardarm and Chris asked above the roar of the storm, "Ye alright?" He was unable to answer, as they were hit by another wave.

Chris spluttered and sank down next to Athos, taking the same position as he on the yardarm. The ship had passed through the eye of the hurricane almost three hours ago, and all Chris wanted was to go to her cabin, change into dry clothes, and then crawl into her bed. Of course, that wasn't going to happen until the ship was free of the storm. And it seemed that the hurricane was having a hard time saying 'Goodbye' to the _Black Pearl_.

Another wave crashed against the ship and it tilted dangerously to the right. Jack spun the wheel with calculated speed and Chris watched the water below loom closer and closer. Jack held the wheel for a moment and then ever so slowly, she sank back into an upright position. Chris let out a sigh of relief and looked to the horizon. She almost let out a cry of joy. She could see calm waters and blue sky! Chris looked at the sails that she and Athos had been tending, seeing that they had some slack. She shakily pulled herself to her feet. "C'mon Athos, it's almost over and we have sails to tighten!"

After several more staggering waves, the _Black Pearl_ left the shadow of the hurricane. Jack worked quickly to sail away from the huge storm and get a safe distance between it and the ship. No one was allowed to go below decks, for they weren't out of the woods yet. Once they were about ten miles from the torrent of clouds and water which was heading the other way, Jack let go of the wheel with a sigh. "Good job, mates. Good job." Jack sounded like he had been ran through a water pump. "We're still sailin' and that's all that matters. Ye're all dismissed to yer hammock, 'less ye think ye can stand another watch. Chris, Gibbs, come see me."

Chris and Gibbs wearily joined Jack at the bridge and their captain turned to them. "I need one of ye two to man the helm and captain the _Pearl_ while I rest." Jack took out a piece of eight. "Call it in the air, Chris." He flipped it.

"Crown!" Chris replied. She wanted her bed something fierce and she hoped beyond hope that the piece of eight came up with the crown up top, not the arms.

Jack caught the coin and slapped it on the back of his other hand. When he uncovered it, Chris' heart sank to see that the arms had come out on top. "Alright. Chris, ye'll cover until the afternoon watch at which point, ye'll take over Gibbs. We'll figure out the rest from there." With that, Jack tipped his tricorn so that the water caught in the brim could spill out, and then he sauntered down the steps, hung a right, and entered his cabin.

"Bad luck, Chris." Gibbs said by way of consolation to the quartermaster. Chris shrugged.

"We all do our duty, I s'pose. As much as we damn well don't want to."

"Well said." Gibbs yawned. "See you at eight bells." He clapped a supportive hand onto Chris' shoulder and drug himself below. Chris slapped her cheeks a few times to keep alert and stood at parade rest before the wheel. She would do her duty, no matter how much she wanted to pass out.

That attitude quickly wore thin. A couple hours later, Chris had slumped against the wheel, half-trying to stay awake. All she was looking forward to was her warm, soft bed when her watch would end, and that idea was too appealing to really have any weight in keeping her awake. The _Black Pearl_ was near a group of three islands that would take some maneuvering to get around because of possible coral and sandbars. The quartermaster yawned and straightened up, turning the wheel slightly to the right, but paused as she caught the scent of smoke on the wind. She looked to the islands and saw a small, curling line of smoke reaching up from the second island to her right.

"Marty!" She exclaimed. He too had been half asleep, but he snapped to attention, his body going rigid.

"Yeah Chris?"

"Could you go get Jack, please?" Chris asked. She pointed at the island. "It's probably nothing, but that smoke is mighty unusual." She went through her head and didn't know the islands to be inhabited by anyone, colonists or natives.

"Aye." Marty nodded and ran down the stairs and to the left. He rapped on the door and Chris only had to wait a few minutes before Marty returned with Jack in tow.

"What is it, Chris?" Jack asked, rubbing his eyes. His coat was not on, neither was his tricorn, and he looked a bit miffed at being woken up in the way he glowered at Chris.

"There is some smoke on that island there." Chris said, pointing. She moved out of the way as Jack took to the wheel, taking his long glass from where it had hung during the hurricane.

He observed the island for a few minutes before saying, "There's a girl there."

"What?" Chris asked. "Just a lone girl?" That was odd.

"I don't see anyone else, or any form of shelter that may hide others. And she's jumpin' up and down, wavin' 'er arms." Jack put the long glass down. "She must be stranded or shipwrecked."

"Well that's nice." Chris said with a hint of sarcasm. "What are we going to do? We're pirates, not a bloody ferry."

"We'll pick her up." Jack said plainly, hanging the long glass back up and adjusting the ship's bearing.

Chris stared at him in silence for a few awestruck seconds. "But… Why?" She was tired, and this little interference was grating on her strained nerves a little too severely.

"Because I know what it's like to be stranded." Jack said. "Any ship would be the Savior's blessing, but if it passed by… God, I don't even want to think of it."

"When you were marooned, you found a rum cache and got sauced for three days!" Chris interjected. Jack rubbed his chin.

"Even so. 'sides, that's not the point. And you never know when she could have a value. Or if her daddy or 'usband has a value." Jack grinned and fingered the helm's knobs. "Always got to think of the profit, lass. Even if it's semi-honest." Jack then began to guide the ship towards the island. Chris blew a raspberry and climbed up in the rigging to give the sailors above an extra hand.

Within half an hour of Jack's precise and careful sailing, they lowered their anchor about a league offshore, for the shoals near the island made it impossible to sail any closer. Chris had been watching the sandy beach as they sailed near, and a blond woman of about her age was sitting on the beach. She was wearing a green dress with puffy sleeves and her blond hair was in a neat braid down her back. Chris and Marty thumped down to the deck and began winching up a jolly boat for deployment to the island. Jack clapped Chris on the back as she and Marty swung the jolly boat over the side of the ship.

"Come down with me, Chris. She might be comforted by a female presence." Chris had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from firing off some smart aleck remark. She was tired, her skin and clothes were caked with salt, and her hair was snagged and snarled into a veritable rat's nest against her scalp. She was sure there was nothing female-looking about her.

Marty and one of the other sailors winched Chris and Jack's jolly boat into the water. Each took an oar and they began paddling for shore. The young blond woman stood and ran to the edge of the surf as the jolly boat approached. Chris was the one who jumped into the surf and helped push the boat up onto the sandy beach, as Jack believed it 'wouldn't be fitting of a captain' to do such a laborious task. _Ye're trying my patience, Sparrow_, Chris growled in her head. Once the jolly boat was beached, Jack stepped from the vessel and whipped his tricorn off of his head.

"Greetings!" Jack said to the young woman. "My name is Captain Jack Sparrow, my lady." He swept into a bow that almost made Chris laugh. "May my crew and I be of service to you?"

When the woman spoke, she had a refined accent of one from the higher class of England, as Chris had at one time, but she had fallen out of since taking to the sea. "Greetings, Captain." She swept into a graceful and beautiful curtsy, not even causing any sand to be sprayed up. "My name is Melody Barnett, and I was stranded here three days ago when one of my father's merchant ships wrecked. I washed up on this beach, and have been here since without friend or aid. But aren't you a known pirate?" When Melody spoke of her father's merchant ship, Jack's eye sparkled at Chris in an "I told you so" fashion, and once again he began to speak.

"Lady Melody," Jack began, "'tis true I am a pirate, but if you need aid," Jack swept into a low bow once more. "My ship, my crew, my service, is yours."

"Why, thank you, kind sir!" Melody twittered, her cheeks flushing a bright red. For one who had been in the sun for three days, her complexion was still very pale.

Chris snorted at this exchange and Jack shot her a look that could kill. "My lady Melody, this is my quartermaster, Christiana. Her cabin may be of use to you during the voyage." Chris' heart sank and she scowled at Jack. She had been sailing for God knew how many hours, was worn to her marrow, and now he was giving her nice, soft, wonderful bed to this simpering castaway?

"Sparrow!" She whispered, but Jack ignored her with a smile. He continued to talk to Melody.

"Where was your ship headed, Lady Melody?" He held out his arm for her. She took it, and the pair climbed into the jolly boat, leaving Chris to push it into the surf. Chris mumbled several curses in French under her breath as she put her shoulder into the stern of the small boat.

"To Port Royale." Melody answered from inside the jolly boat. "My father awaits there. He should be most generous to my brave rescuer." With a grunt, the boat was free of the beach and Chris continued pushing it into the waves until she was waist deep in water. Then she jumped into the back of the jolly boat, spraying Jack and Melody with the sea. Melody exclaimed loudly and Jack told Chris to watch where she was leaping. The quartermaster simply scowled and picked up her oar.

Once they had boarded the _Black Pearl_, Jack assembled the rest of the conscious crew and informed them that they would be taking "Lady Melody" to Port Royale as a passenger and that every member was to respect her or answer to him. Chris was amazed by him. What was he thinking, ensuring a perfect stranger safe passage to a port where, quite recently as well in the past, Jack had riled up the military forces there?

_And ushering her into my cabin, no less?_ She wondered. Jack dismissed the crew and ordered Chris to show Melody to her cabin. Gibbs' watch had come on while the captain and quartermaster had been ashore, and so the woman looked forward to jumping in a hammock and finally getting some rest after the hostile takeover of her cabin. "Follow me." She commanded the young woman.

Chris led "Lady Melody" to her cabin and opened the door. Her room was in disarray, some of it from Chris, and some from the hurricane. Her desk had toppled over and paper, quills, smashed ink bottles, and puddles of ink dotted the floor. Clothes were strewn about, the screen had folded on itself and collapsed, and the mirror was askew, which was better than broken. Melody raised her hands to her mouth as she surveyed the shambles that her cabin for this voyage was in. "Well… Enjoy." Chris turned on her heel just as Melody let out a shriek. Spinning around, Chris saw that Loki had streaked out from under the bed and now he climbed up Chris' leg. Melody fled towards the porthole and Jack appeared in the doorway before one could blink.

"What is it?" He demanded. "Are ye alright, Lady Melody?" Jack asked, entering the cabin and searching for any present danger. He looked at the disarray and said, "Nice cabin-keeping skills, Chris." Melody joined Jack at his side.

Chris ignored his remark. "It seems Melody is afraid of Loki." Chris said, scratching her monkey under the chin. _Good monkey_.

"I most certainly am not! He just startled me!" Objected Melody, though she was clinging onto Jack's arm.

"Right. Well, ta, I'm going below decks to see if anyone wants to share a hammock, as I am frightfully cold. Pity me clothes are covered in salt, I could dirty someone's hammock." She sighed. "Ah well. I can always take them off." Chris turned right after she saw shock and disgust on Melody's face, which is what she aimed for with her words. As she turned, she suddenly felt a burning on her right shoulder as it was grabbed. "Ow!" She turned around and grabbed Melody's hand and the two women locked eyes. There was something in Melody's eyes that she couldn't place, but after a moment Melody whimpered.

"Your grip is hurting me!"

"Chris, let go! What is wrong with you?" Jack asked. Chris released Melody's hand. Her shoulder still burned, but the sensation was fading. Melody started quivering.

"I just wanted to thank you for the kindness of lending me your cabin." Melody said, her bottom lip trembling.

"I think ye have a stronger grip than me, Melody." Chris replied. She turned on her heel and left, heading below to the main hold. Her shoulder still ached, and she wondered just how exactly Melody grabbed her to make it throb with such pain. Loki curled his tail around her neck as Chris pulled out a spare hammock, quietly so as not to wake up those sleeping in the hammocks hanging above. She strung her hammock up and climbed into it, Loki taking position at the end where her feet lay. The matter of her shoulder's pain soon faded from her mind as the swaying of the ship and her hammock quickly rocked her tired body to sleep.

She didn't wake until the next morning. As she and Loki entered the galley, she noticed the absence of Jack. Chris sat beside Gibbs after she had gotten her burgoo from Cotton, and asked, "Captain didn't want to eat with us this morning?" She didn't quite care that Melody wasn't there.

"He demanded a private breakfast between himself and that 'Lady Melody.'" Gibbs informed her, his tone disdainful. "He's been acting funny ever since she boarded." Chris liked the fact that the first mate didn't like her either.

"You're telling me." She began to eat her breakfast, leaving Loki to his own devices with a banana. "He kicked me out of my cabin and came to her aid when she squealed like a stuck pig, all because Loki came out from under my bed." She took her cup of water and gulped some of it down. "I don't like our captain when he thinks below the waist, not above the neck."

There was some snickering in the galley, but Gibbs shot her a chastising look. She bowed her head and murmured an apology to the absent captain. "We're going to stop in Tortuga for some supplies before we return her to Port Royale. The water that washed over the sides of the ship soaked most of our flour, and some of the other food wasn't salvageable." Gibbs said. "That and we want to make sure there's no ship heading for Port Royale that we can put her on."

"I see you also realized the predicament with us going to Port Royale so shortly after what was supposed to be William Turner III's christening?" Chris asked, cocking her head to the side.

"I can't believe he agreed to such a thing." Anamaria piped up. "That has to be one of the most foolish –"

Gibbs cleared his throat and stopped Anamaria. "I know that each of ye are entitled to their opinion, Chris, Ana," He fixed them both with stares, "But mumblings such as these could be the beginnings of mutiny and I will not have it in the galley. Do you understand me, girls?" Anamaria and Chris replied that they did. Gibbs drained his cup. "When you're done with breakfast, Chris, the helm is yours."

Chris was at the wheel for most of the day. She knocked on Jack's door several times with questions or to just check on him, but there were shouts from the captain to leave him alone. She continued knocking until the first dog watch, at which point Anamaria relieved her and Chris had enough of being told to sod off by her captain. She, Gibbs, and Anamaria were not the captain of the _Black Pearl_, Jack Sparrow was. And by God, if he wasn't going to voluntarily leave his cabin and captain his ship, Chris was going to make sure he was. She was quartermaster, after all. She grabbed Pintel and Ragetti as back-up, and they both approached the door to Jack's cabin.

Chris pounded on the door with her fist. "Jack, open the door. We need to talk! Ye are captain of this bark, after all. Not Gibbs, not Anamaria, not me. You!" Chris expected silence, but the door swung open. It was Melody. Her puffy sleeves were pulled down a bit, showing off her neck and shoulders, and her face was flushed. Her blond hair looked a bit snarled

"The captain is sleeping." She said, her voice dripping with sweetness. Chris looked behind Melody into the room and saw that there was indeed a prone form upon his bed. Well, at least he was clothed.

"Well, the captain needs to wake himself up and command the bleedin' ship." Chris snapped. "He has other duties to attend to than 'entertaining' a shipwrecked passenger." Chris' eyes locked once more with Melody, and Chris saw annoyance lying in Melody's green eyes.

Melody smiled sweetly, but her smile was fake. "He is sick. He will not be able to command today, _Christiana_." With that, she closed the door with a snap, almost catching Chris' nose in the door jamb.

"Who do she finks she is," Ragetti asked, "treating the quartermaster like that?"

"She's actin' all high and mighty when she doesn't know nothin' 'bout sailing or commanding a ship." Pintel added. "I say ye should try your cat on her, Chris."

"Jack wouldn't allow that, unfortunately." Chris sighed. "There's only one thing to do." She tried to open the door, but it would budge. _Must have thrown the latch_. "We're going to break down the door."

"Ye sure about that, Chris?" Pintel asked.

"Oh yes." Chris replied. "And if it's broken, that won't keep any of us from seeing Jack, now will it?" Pintel and Ragetti shrugged in agreement. All three of the pirates backed up a few paces. "I want ye to put your weight into your shoulders. On the count of three. One, two, three!" Chris said. They ran for the door shoulders first.

THUMP!

The door budged, but it was barely noticeable. "Again!" Chris commanded. She counted and they all ran at the door once more. It budged slightly, and then was pushed shut by someone inside.

"This Melody wench is starting to annoy me." Chris grumbled. "I'm sure we at the very least loosened the latch's fastenings. Come on lads! One, two, three!" They ran for the door full out.

**WHAM!**

"_AHH_! _BLOODY_ –!"

Nothing happened to the door, but Chris, Pintel, and Ragetti bounced back from it on impact and then fell over one another. Chris had been the one to cry out and her shoulder was hanging loosely from its socket Pintel was cursing, and Ragetti was hugging his own shoulder tightly.

"Good God!" Chris said through clenched teeth. She was sure her shoulder had been popped out of its socket. "How did that happen?" It was as if a force greater than even the hurricane the _Black Pearl_ had endured had thrown the three back from the door.

"Let's try it again." Pintel muttered, pulling himself to his feet, determination clearly etched on his brow.

"No! No…" Chris stood up and leaned against the wall beside the door. With a pop, her shoulder was back in place, but pain still coursed through it. "We could end up doing worse to ourselves, and if our captain's being daft, we do not need two sailors and the quartermaster laid up with bad shoulders. Let's continue our duties. If Jack is daft enough to stay inside with her, we'll leave him be."

Chris' shoulder bothered her for the rest of the day, even so much that she couldn't even attend to the simplest of duties that required her to lift something or for her to climb into the rigging. She rubbed it slightly every now and then; it still felt loose. And not only that, but it was the shoulder Melody had grabbed the day before, which seemed an odd coincidence.

By nightfall, the _Black Pearl_ had reached Tortuga. The three islands where Melody had been shipwrecked hadn't been far from the pirate port, and Chris was thankful for this. There would be a doctor there who could look at her shoulder, and if that didn't help, she could guzzle rum until she didn't feel anything anymore.

Once more, she and Pintel and Ragetti, now accompanied by Anamaria and Gibbs, pounded on Jack's door, announcing that they were going drinking. There was no answer from inside.

"I hope he isn't doing what he's known for doing with wenches." Gibbs muttered into Chris' ear, over her bad shoulder, as Loki was perched on her good one, "It could turn messy with her dad, especially if her innocence was… intact."

"That would explain her arrogance if she's sleepin' with Jack, though I'd never think he'd risk her growing attached to him." Chris replied. Loki, who was sitting on her good shoulder, squealed as if in agreement. As the five disembarked from the _Black Pearl_, Chris gave one look back at the ship and muttered, "Our captain, I swear…"

They entered the Faithful Bride and ordered a round of rum before sitting at a table. When it arrived, Chris grabbed for her own drink and as soon as her fingers closed about it her shoulder suddenly ached violently. "Ah!" She dropped her wooden mug, causing rum to splatter all over the others.

"No free refills!" The barmaid sang before whisking her tray and herself away.

"Alright there, Chris?" Anamaria asked. She eyed the pool of rum, picking up the mug. "What a waste."

"No, I'm not alright. It's this shoulder." Chris said, rubbing her shoulder in a circular motion. "I haven't the faintest idea how that bloody door could be solid enough to pop bone right out of the socket."

"We can take Poppet to a doctor." Ragetti said, lifting his nose from his mug of rum. "One's me friend. He won't charge if she comes wif me." The one-eyed man paused before continuing. "Well… he might, but 'e'll give you a good deal."

"That's a good idea. Take her, lads. We'll be waiting here." Gibbs said. As Chris and the two pirates rose, Loki leaped from her shoulder and took up what was left of her deserted mug of rum. "Just as well." Gibbs said, looking at the monkey. "He'll be out of the doctor's way."

Ragetti led from the Faithful Bride, and Chris and Pintel followed, the latter's mug still in hand. As they walked through the streets, they were witness to a lynching, a horse dragging several men, and a man surrounded by several wenches. Ah, the bouquet of unlawfulness that was Tortuga!

"This doctor we know," Ragetti informed Chris as they neared a grass hut with no windows that was set up on a beach apart from the docks, "He's a witch doctor, but 'e was also trained by English doctors many years ago. He's the one who set me up wif me eye." That bit of information gave Chris a rather doubtful opinion about whether or not this doctor could be any good. Ragetti paused as they approached the grass hut's entrance. There was no door, but light poured out from inside.

"Doctor Baloo?" Ragetti called out. There was some rustling from inside, and an old, stooped man with dark skin, a bald head, and a full gray beard hobbled out. He was wearing ragged trousers with a length of rope for a belt and no shirt.

He scratched his side as he peered into the dark night and the three figures there. "Who dere, who dere?" He asked. Once he spotted Ragetti, he straightened and asked, "Ragetti, dat you?"

"Doctor Baloo!" Ragetti greeted cheerfully. Doctor Baloo stepped forward and with a smooth sweep of his arm he hit Ragetti upside the head. Ragetti yelped and his eye popped out. He fell to his knees to find his eye, and when he did the good doctor kicked him hard on the behind.

"Over ten years ago, ten years! I fixed your eye, and you still don't come to pay!" He gave Ragetti another kick. "Is dat why you come now? You come to pay Doctor Baloo?"

"We need help, Doctor Baloo! Me friend, she 'urt her shoulder!" Ragetti scrambled to his feet. Pintel was watching this exchange with a grin on his face.

"Help! You tink I'm gonna help you when you ain't even paid me up for the last time! You a damn fool, boy! I ain't gon' help anyone!" Doctor Baloo poised his leg to take another kick, but Chris grabbed him and stopped him.

She pulled out her drinking money for the night and showed it to Baloo. She knew it was a pretty good amount, since she had thought of drinking until she couldn't feel pain or feelings anymore if worse came to worse. "Will this be enough?" She asked, showing it to Baloo. He counted it with his eyes.

"You give me all dat for Ragetti's debt plus interest and your own, and it's enough." Chris handed the money to Baloo, hoping that whatever he did would work, otherwise she was going to be sober and miserable. "Follow me." The three followed the witch doctor into his grass hut, which consisted of one large room, a hearth, and sleeping mats in the corner. A table with stools surrounding it rested in the middle of the room, a lantern on the middle of it, and cupboards nearby. Several children were playing with a ball in one of the corners, and a woman and man were sleeping on mats in another corner. Chris figured one of the younger adults must have been the child of Doctor Baloo, and the children must be his grandchildren.

"Now, mizzy, what you got botherin' ya?" Doctor Baloo asked, sitting on a stool at the table. Ragetti and Pintel, though nearby, turned to the children and their ball, taking interest in the game they were playing.

"My shoulder. I hurt it trying to break down a door. It was popped out of its socket, and I popped it back in, but its botherin' me something awful." Chris explained, touching the aforementioned shoulder tenderly.

"Hmm…" Doctor Baloo commented, rubbing his beard. "Take off yer shirt."

Ragetti and Pintel, who had stepped in to play with the children, snapped their heads up to look at Chris so fast they must have gotten cricks in their necks. "What?" Chris asked, alarmed. She wasn't exactly prudent, but she didn't feel like showing off her bare chest to her crewmates just yet.

"It's not what you're thinkin'. I need to check yer shoulder out, and I can't do dat while you're wearin' a shirt." The doctor said gently. Chris turned from Pintel and Ragetti's prying gaze and removed her shirt carefully. She arranged her long brown hair so it covered her front and did not reveal anything of her bosom before turning back to the doctor. Ragetti and Pintel gave disappointed sighs and went back to the children's game.

"Which shoulder?" the doctor asked, walking to her. Chris indicated her right shoulder and Baloo had her raise and rotate her arm, which all caused her pain. She did her best not to grimace or vocalize the pain loudly.

"Dere's swellin'." Baloo informed her. "I'll get you some herbs you can tie around the joint for a few days, dey will make de swellin' go down... But I tink dat time is the only ting dat'll help you. You should try to not use it for a couple days and have it in a sling. Make sure to move it and rotate it." He walked behind her and rummaged in some cupboards. When he turned back around, he gave a yell. The children, Ragetti, and Pintel looked up from their game, and the two adults stirred in their sleep.

"What?" Chris asked, afraid he may have spotted something else wrong with her shoulder.

"D-de mark o' de succubus!" Baloo breathed. "You have it!" He touched the spot on her shoulder that Melody had grabbed the day before, and it was like he had shoved a red hot poker into her flesh.

"Ow!" Chris cried out, jumping away. She looked behind her on the right and saw, on her shoulder, a bright red claw-like mark in her skin.

Doctor Baloo had blanched and now was pale. "My dear chil'…" He began, "You have been touched by a succubus." His voice was grave, and his grandchildren had fallen silent, their ball and game forgotten.

"What is a succubus?" Chris asked, gazing at the mark as best as she could. It almost looked like her skin had become infected.

"It is a foul demon. She lives only to seduce and mate with men, weakenin' dem, and den killin' dem by takin' deir soul from wit'in dem. She has marked you to become one." Baloo's tone was serious, as was his expression; else Chris would have thought he was pulling her leg.

Chris blinked a few times and pulled her shirt on. "How could this have happened?" She asked after a pause.

"Chil', have you come into any contact with a woman over the few days who has made at least one man act strange?" The witch doctor asked.

"Yes. Yes!" Chris realized what he was saying. "We picked up a shipwrecked woman… She's been in the cabin with our captain and he hasn't come out since yesterday!" Chris sucked in a breath. "I knew that simpering idiot was –!"

The doctor interrupted her. "We must hurry chil'…" Doctor Baloo returned to his cupboards and grabbed a crystal sphere and a leather pouch from within. He spoke to the children in a foreign tongue and they all assembled behind him. "We must hurry to save your captain if it is not already too late."

Chris, Ragetti, Pintel, Doctor Baloo, and the children streamed from the hut, heading for the docks. Chris was worried that she had perhaps let something happen to her captain. She wasn't exactly sure what a succubus would do or even if this wasn't just a grand ruse concocted by Ragetti and Doctor Baloo, but she knew… she knew that something awful would happen to Jack if she didn't trust Doctor Baloo. The sailors, doctor, and the children scrambled up the gangplank of the _Black Pearl_ after a very brisk walk to the docks. Chris said nothing to the startled Athos, who was watching the ship, but continued to the Captain's cabin door. "He's in there." Chris said to the doctor.

Doctor Baloo put a finger to his lips and he pushed on the door, which surprisingly swung open. Chris gazed into the room, and what she saw stunned her. Several candles cast a dim light around the room, but Melody was floating several inches above Jack, who was lying on his bed. His brow was covered in sweat, and his face was as white as sea foam. His eyes were open, but he seemed unable to move.

Melody did not look like a human anymore. She was glowing red; she had leathery wings extended from her back, and horns sprouted from her head. The dress she had been wearing now clung to her in scraps, barely covering any modesty she could have. As she hovered above Jack, she reached down into his chest for what Chris assumed was his soul, to kill Jack, and a white light erupted. Jack began to gasp and stutter; his eyes were rolling into the back of his head—

"NO!" Chris yelled. She leaped into the room and grabbed a small table with remnants of food and dishes on it. She hurled it at Melody and it hit her, making her drop onto Jack. The light stopped, and she pulled her hands out of his chest. "Why don't ye show some guts and fight someone who can actually fight back, ye villainous gull strangling slop bucket?" EDIIT

Chris then threw herself at the succubus. She pulled the demon off of the bed, to her feet, and slugged her across the face. Melody staggered backwards, growled, and began to roar. Her hand shot forward and she grabbed Chris by the neck. Chris soon found that her feet could no longer touch the floor and she couldn't breathe. "You little bit of sea scum!" Melody's voice no longer had any sweet tone, but it was abrasive and deep. "You're not even worth the sweat on my brow!" The light of the succubus engulfed Chris, and she felt as though her heart was being torn from her body. Chris put her hands on Melody's chin and tried to gouge out her eyes, throw her off, do anything, but the succubus instead roared and threw Chris towards the wall. Chris braced herself for impact, but instead of hitting the wall and falling down, Chris heard a crunch, felt the splintering of wood, and actually crashed through the wall and flopped out onto the deck.

"Ugh…" She wanted to get up, but being thrown through a solid wooden wall seemed to do something to her mobility. Her body ached all over, and her only consolation was that now she could breathe as she lay face down on the deck. The wreckage of the cabin wall lay around her, and suddenly Athos was at her side.

"Chris… Are you alright?" He asked, flipping her over onto her back. Her body protested, but there was not much she could do about it.

Chris didn't answer, but twisted her neck to look back in at what was occurring in the captain's cabin through the broken wall. Ragetti and Pintel were staring at the succubus with dazed looks on their faces, but Doctor Baloo directed the children in a foreign language, and they encircled her, their hands clasped. The succubus roared and swiped at the children, but it seemed that the children were either unaffected by her, or very, very brave. Baloo took a handful of something out of the leather pouch he had brought as Melody rounded on him. Baloo threw it onto her. The powder sparkled brightly as it rained down upon her, and she screamed as if she were being burned alive. She tore at her skin and hair, glowing redder and brighter.

Doctor Baloo shouted in the foreign language and held the crystal sphere in front of him. It radiated white light, which engulfed the succubus. There was a final shrieking scream from her and the light engulfed her. The light glowed brighter and brighter, so much that Chris had to look away. With a flash, the light was gone, and when Chris looked back, so was Melody. Ragetti and Pintel snapped out of their daze and looked around in confusion. Baloo walked towards Jack with the sphere and placed it over his heart. Chris feared that her captain might be dead, but Doctor Baloo smashed the sphere onto the man's chest and Jack suddenly sat up, coughing and retching.

Doctor Baloo looked out at Chris. "Take her somewhere to rest." Doctor Baloo commanded Ragetti, and then he turned to Jack. Ragetti walked out of the cabin door instead of the destroyed wall and joined Chris and Athos.

"Ragetti, what just happened?" Athos asked.

"To tell the truth, I don't right know meself." Ragetti replied. He kneeled down to the woman lying on the deck? "Poppet?" Ragetti bent over her and picked her up in his arms. Chris could smell nothing but animals again. "I'm going to take ye to yer cabin to rest." He declared. Chris couldn't object; her whole body ached, her heart was pounding fast, and she didn't have the strength to do anything else. Ragetti carried her down to her cabin (which was shockingly clean and organized), followed by Athos, and pulled back the clean sheets of her bed. Ragetti lay her down and stroked her hair. "Rest, Poppet. Rest." Within minutes, she was in a troubled sleep, her last thought being, _Thank God Jack's all right_.

Chris' head was pounding when she sensed light the next morning. She moaned softly and opened her eyes. Loki was curled up at the end of her bed, and Jack was sitting in her desk's chair next to her screen, a bottle of rum clutched in his hand. He wasn't awake, but he wasn't asleep either. He was staring at a spot on the floor with his eyes half shut. Doctor Baloo was in the room too. He had cleared off her desk and several plants, vials of liquids, and bowls were lined up on it.

With effort, Chris sat up. She regretted it immediately, because her head began to spin as soon as she moved it. Jack gave a start once she moved, and the rum bottle fell to the floor with a loud clunk, which woke Loki. The monkey was startled, so he jumped from the bed and streaked underneath it. All of the noise sent Chris' head into an unpleasant whirl.

The captain crossed to Chris' side and grabbed one of her arms. "Chris, you alright? No succubus-like qualities?" Jack asked, speaking rather loudly.

Chris' head pounded even harder with his loud tone. "No. But if I were standing, I'd kick you in the jewels for being so loud." She groaned.

Jack turned to Baloo, who had picked up a vial of liquid. "She's perfectly normal!" He announced, his lips parted in a grin.

The doctor smiled and crossed to stand beside Jack. "We were afraid dat when her light touched you, you may have become a succubus, since she had marked you. Drink dis." He handed her the vial and she downed it in one gulp. It tasted like berries, and she felt a cooling sensation down her throat, and it spread throughout her entire body. Pretty soon, her head stopped aching, and so did her body. "One more ting to check, chil'." Doctor Baloo gently guided her to lean forward. He pulled down the back of her shirt and checked her right shoulder. "No mark." He said. "Not a ting on dat shoulder. Ye're free of de succubus."

The next day, the _Black Pearl_ sailed away from Tortuga. Doctor Baloo had left several vials of the berry tasting liquid for Chris. He said that once she drank them all, she'd be back to her old self, and be free of aches not only from her shoulder, but her being thrown through a wall as well. Jack rewarded Doctor Baloo with a solid gold crown and a sack of gold coins left over from the plundering of the _Adelita_. Doctor Baloo was happy to accept, and once he had the crown on his head, and the sack in his hands, he and his grandchildren bid the _Pearl_ farewell.

As the _Pearl_ sailed from Tortuga's safe harbor, Chris was not assigned any watches. Jack and Gibbs both agreed that the quartermaster needed her rest since not many people could come out of being thrown through a wall with such ease as she. Chris resigned herself to just being on deck and keeping an eye on things, even if she couldn't do much to help. And so Chris found herself on deck as they left Tortuga, her arm in a sling and her eyes making sure that lines were tight and no sails were slack.

"'Ey Chris!" Jack came out of his cabin (He came through the wall which was in the process of being repaired by Marty), holding something in his hands. "Lookit this!" He handed her one of Melody's horns which looked to have been broken off.

"I wonder how this got left behind?" Chris asked as she turned it over in her hands.

Jack shrugged. "Baloo said 'e sent 'er back to Hell. Maybe this didn't go back. When he found it, he lemme keep it." Jack took it back from Chris and inspected it. "A nice little trophy, considerin', don'cha think?"

Chris smiled softly, deciding to have a little fun with her captain. "It will look so flattering on you, sir."

"I do fancy meself an autumn." Jack returned her smile and bowed. "Thank ye much."

oOo

Well there's a love gone down on mine  
Suicidal voltage line  
She send signals out of distress  
She-devil, she evil  
She's got you reelin' on a rockin' machine

With a flick of the switch  
With a flick of the switch  
She'll blow you sky high  
With a flick of the switch  
With a flick of the switch  
She can satisfy

She's gonna blow you all sky high  
Flash the eye electrify  
A power force you should feel  
She-devil, she evil  
She's got you screamin' on a lightnin' machine

With a flick of the switch  
Flick of the switch  
She'll blow you sky high  
With a flick of the switch  
Flick of the switch  
She can satisfy  
Give you pain  
Blow your brains

Flick the switch  
Flick the switch  
With a flick of the switch she'll blow you sky high  
With a flick of the switch she can satisfy  
With a flick of the switch gonna burn you down  
With a flick of the switch raise to the ground  
With a flick of the switch  
With a flick of the switch  
With a flick of the switch she gonna give you pain  
With a flick of the switch she gonna blow your brain

Blow your brain  
She gonna put the light out on you


	4. Sibling Rivalry !

**Chapter Four  
Sibling Rivalry**

Chris walked out of the galley, a bottle of rum clutched in her hand, and Loki curled up on her shoulder. The crew had thrown a little party after selling off a plundered ship and its cargo for a rather handsome profit earlier that day. Chris had exited early, because she didn't wish to get drunk, as she had the morning watch the next day. Jack had not attended the party, insisting he had another matter to attend to, and as he said this, several people scoffed, Chris included. Why would Jack give up an opportunity to drink? But he hadn't gone to the galley at all, so they mostly figured it was true.

Chris wanted to walk around a bit while she finished her rum. She headed for the poop deck. As she neared the stern, she noticed someone sitting at the railing on the side, their legs hanging over. As she walked nearer, she could tell that it was her captain.

"Evenin', Cap'n." Chris said, coming to stand beside him. Loki looked at the captain, stretched, and jumped from Chris' shoulder, leaving them. Jack flinched slightly at the unexpected sound of her voice.

"Hey, Chris. 'ave a seat." Jack patted the space of deck next to him. Chris saw a rum bottle between his legs as she settled herself down next to him. He was sitting with his legs hanging through the bulkhead, and so Chris took up the same position.

"Ye know, we had rum in the galley too." Chris said, smiling as she shook her rum bottle at him.

"Aye, but not this one bottle. It's been calling me name since yesterday." Jack lifted the bottle from between his legs and took a swig. "Ahhh."

"Why didn't ye join us tonight, cap'n? Your presence was missed." Chris took a drink from her own bottle and stared into the dark abyss over the ship's side.

"It's me dad's birthday today. Haven't seen 'im in a while, and I just wanted to have the pleasure of memories by meself." Jack explained.

"If ye want, I'll leave ye to them, captain." Chris said, getting ready to pull herself to her feet.

"Ah no, no." Jack replied. "Ye can stay." Chris settled back down. "He's gettin' up there in years, o' course, but then again, so am I." He sighed. "I should go see him sometime soon." He paused for a moment and asked, "What about you, Chris? Any plans to visit your family again someday soon?"

Chris laughed wryly. "I don't think so, captain." She took a drink from her bottle.

"Ah, come on, Chris. I'm sure ye especially miss yer brother." Jack teased. Chris rolled her eyes.

"Oh aye." There was a few moments silence and Chris said, "I don't know if they'd want to see me again. I mean, I wrote them that letter before I signed onto my first ship telling them that I wasn't going to marry Malcolm, and well… I think I could have pissed me mum and dad right off." She laughed. "We already know what Norrington thinks of me profession. Nah, I think I'm good staying right where I am. I have the sea to bathe me, the sun to kiss me, and the _Pearl _to hold me close. I don't need to see them again, and they don't need to see me."

"Well spoken, Chris." Jack raised his bottle and Chris clinked her own against it. "After all, who needs family when we have the sea, eh?"

"Aye." Chris smiled at her captain and took a swig of rum. Eventually, they both ran out of their drink and bade each other good night. Jack headed aft to the captain's cabin, and Chris headed into the forecastle to her own bed.

After her watch the next morning, Chris joined Athos, Ragetti, and Pintel down in the main hold. The hammocks had been put away for the day, so there was plenty of room to set up a table and some chairs. The four sat down and Athos broke out a deck of water stained cards. "Poker?" He asked. The other three agreed, and he began dealing.

Each of the pirates had a small amount of coins saved up from their last pay, and so they used the coins to wage bets. A few hands were played with some coins changing hands, but there were no really large bets or major upsets. An hour or so passed, and Chris had her first really good hand and was about to push all of her coins forward when there was a faint popping sound.

"What's that?" Ragetti asked, slowly lowering his cards.

A cannon ball suddenly ripped through the wooden wall across from them. They all hit the deck just as it whistled where their heads had been, hit the wall, and stayed there. Chris ran to the gap and looked out. A British naval ship was attacking them, and this wasn't just any British ship. It was none other than the _Dauntless_.

"Man the cannons!" She heard Jack shouting above decks and the bell ringing furiously as it called all sailors to quarters. "Mr. Gibbs, please bring me my pistol and sword, I have a feeling that we're in for face-to-face confrontation!"

Chris looked at Pintel, Ragetti, and Athos, who were picking themselves up from the floor. "Well, ye heard the captain, to the cannons!" She took Loki from a hammock fastening above where he had been hanging and placed him on her shoulder. Chris and the other sailors raced one deck lower to where the guns were. As Chris poured powder into cannon, she vaguely thought that James could be on the _Dauntless_, but it didn't matter. She shoved in the wad and then lifted a cannon ball into the barrel. She plugged her ears as Pintel lit the fuse and the cannon fired, propelling a cannonball into the side of the _Dauntless_. The cannon bucked backwards and Chris pushed it back into position the moment it stopped moving. She grabbed the powder horn and worked on reloading the gun. Several dozen cannonballs later, Marty came down below to take Chris' place, as there was a boarding party that needed to be led.

Jack had her rapier and pistol in hand. He handed them to her and said, "We'll follow soon. Get to the captain, if ye can." Chris nodded and swallowed hard as the plank was thrown across the two ships. Grappling hooks had already been thrown across, but Chris was astonished to see that the _Dauntless_ was tilting at a funny angle. I then hit her that the _Dauntless_ was slowly sinking. Chris could not believe that the guns of the _Black _Pearl had done such damage in so short a time. Already, the British ship was submerged in water, almost to the gun ports. The _Black Pearl_, however, floated as if she were fresh from the shipyard.

"Forward!" Chris cried, brandishing her rapier and pointing to the _Dauntless_. She led the pirates onto the naval ship just in time to stop sailors from boarding a jolly boat. They did not put up a fight, but surrendered for they knew their situation was helpless. Chris' thought that perhaps James was on the _Dauntless_ resurfaced, but she did not see him. It was just an idle worry, and she pushed it away and she and the boarding party collected the weapons of the surrendered sailors.

Jack bounded over from the _Black Pearl_ moments later, his swagger never more apparent and prominent than at that moment as he crossed to a Marine and asked, "Where's yer captain?"

The Marine blanched as he realized he was not just talking to any pirate captain, but the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow. "I – I don't know sir. He must be below."

"Gibbs!" Jack called, and his first mate was at his side instantly. Jack clapped the Marine on the back. "Let's go find him. Quartermaster Thomas, see that the prisoners and any salvageable supplies are taken onto the _Black Pearl_ before the _Dauntless_ carries them to their doom." Gibbs, Jack, and the Marine then headed below and Chris turned to the pirates and the British sailors.

"You heard him!"

After the British sailors had helped load the salvageable provisions of the _Dauntless_ onto the pirate ship, as well as a couple of their cannon, Chris directed the British sailors into the brig and made sure that each of them were given a bowl of burgoo and a biscuit. They were all right, for British Naval men, and Chris would be sure to take good care of the men until they were ransomed or let off. She knew that some of them would choose the pirate's life over the naval if given a chance, and then the others were diehard salty Navy men that would rather die than betray their service. Either way, they were her charges now.

She emerged onto the deck of the _Pearl_ and observed the supplies that had still not been moved below. Burlap sacks full of food, kegs of water, and ammunition stores surrounded her. She called for some help, and she and Anamaria and the others moved the stores below. When Chris returned to the deck, she saw Jack speaking low with Gibbs. When he saw her, he finished his conversation and crossed to where Chris was standing. "All right there, captain?" She asked. The _Dauntless_ had sank while she and Anamaria had been busy, and now only the topmost bit of masts above the royals were showing in the water.

Jack was very solemn as he spoke. "Chris… Ye should see something." Chris didn't ask questions, but followed him below to the brig. There were some comments from behind the bars, but other than that, the brig was silent. Jack led Chris down the row to the last cell, which Chris had left empty in the off chance that a prisoner might be mouthy and need some solitary confinement. Jack stopped before it and motioned for Chris took look inside. Lying in the last cell, alone, was a man in a neatly pressed blue uniform, stripped of weapons, and his mouth set in a straight line. Chris' heart jumped into her throat and she grabbed the bars for a closer look as she saw his face. It was her brother. It was Commodore James Norrington.

"His leg is twisted funny. He didn't want to give up his damn sword, so we dueled. He fell from the bridge to the deck and that was the end of that." Jack muttered in her ear. He pulled her from the bars so that they were face to face. "Here is some wood fer a splint and old bandanas to tie it." He pointed to a pile outside the bars, turned on his heel, and marched up the stairs.

Chris silently thanked him for saying no more than that, but she half-wished he had stayed. _Hoist up, girl_. Chris swallowed hard and went to retrieve the key from the nail on the wall near the stairwell. She returned and opened the cell, leaving the key in the lock, and entered. When she closed the door, Norrington raised his head to look at her, and then lowered it. He didn't say anything; he just stared at the ceiling and grimaced.

She couldn't blame him for not saying anything. They had not necessarily parted on good terms the last time they encountered each other, what with Chris giving him a stiff kick between the legs and him hollering for her and Jack's capture. Chris looked down at her brother's right leg, and indeed, it was kinked in an unnatural way. She had set bones before, but only fingers at that. She hoped she would be up to this task.

"Your leg needs to be set." She stated plainly. She was sure he wouldn't mind her forgoing any pleasantries. Chris was almost sad treating him with so little deference. They were so close at one time, and now they were just shy of perfect strangers who happened to be enemies.

"It's fine." He responded, looking warily at Loki, who had been eyeing the brass buttons on his uniform. Norrington moved his leg back and forth on the floor, his mouth clenched shut. "See? Fine."

"Don't be stubborn, it's crooked." Chris pressed.

Norrington looked up at Chris, his expression neutral. "And?"

Chris sighed. This was going to be a long process if he was going to continue acting this way. "You're still stubborn. Always have been." She could not keep the affection from her voice. He was still her brother, after all. She pulled the wood and bandanas through the cell bars and sat next to him.

"I have not." Norrington grumbled. "_You're_ the one –"

"Stop that. Sit up." Chris commanded. Norrington glared up at her and she crossed her arms. She could feel the eyes of the other sailors and Marines on them both. He finally relented and she helped him sit up against the bars. He clenched his jaw as she slowly moved his right leg. "I'm gonna rip yer trouser leg so I can check it out, James." Chris informed him. He nodded. Chris took hold of the cuff of his trouser leg and ripped it up the middle. His calf was slightly swollen and discolored; the sight of it made her stomach churn. She wished she had some help; she wished Jack or Anamaria or Marty or Ragetti or anyone else were there, if only for unspoken support. _Stop acting like such a girl! God, he's just your brother._

Chris looked at her brother. "I'm going to set it now. Are you ready?"

Norrington gritted his teeth. "Yes."

Chris leaned his leg against one of the boards of wood. She heard her brother breath in sharply. Swiftly, Chris set the bone with a slight cracking sound. Norrington had clenched his fists and seemed to be biting his tongue, but he made no sound. Chris placed three more boards around the calf and tied them together tightly with the bandanas and she was done. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" Chris asked, peering into his blue eyes, the same eyes she and their mother had.

"Easy for you to say." Norrington said through clenched teeth. "Help me to that bench." Chris slung an arm around Norrington and they both hobbled to the bench that served as both bed and seat for the cell occupant. Chris looked to the side and saw that Norrington's men were whispering to each other. She half-wondered what they were saying.

"I need to get back to my duties." She helped him sit down gingerly. "I'll send down some burgoo and a biscuit for you." After that she was quite lost for words, so she simply exited the cell, locked it, and returned the key to its nail. Her brother was on the _Black Pearl_, and injured. And he was also a commodore, a commodore who was an enemy of her captain. She needed to find Jack.

She found him inventorying the pilfered supplies with Cotton. "May I speak with you privately, Captain?" She asked. Jack looked to Cotton and he, his parrot, and his ledger exited the hold. Chris then joined her hands before her and asked, "What are you going to do with me brother?"

Jack shrugged. "'e's a prisoner. We could always ransom 'im –"

"Jack, he's me brother!" That exclamation took even Chris by surprise. Jack countered it immediately.

"Yeah, and a pig! If 'e were free and had some weight around here, he'd hang the both of us in a second!"

Chris sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "But what are the chances that we can ransom them? What if the Navy just came after us with more than one ship? Jack, I think we should just shove them off in some jolly boats and be done with it."

"While I do respect your opinion as my quartermaster, _Christiana_," Chris winced at the use of her given name. Jack always used it when she was trying his temper or had disappointed him, "I am captain of this ship and will determine what to do with any prisoners she may carry. Savvy?"

Chris sighed. "Aye, captain."

"Now go up above and cover the first dog." Jack turned back to the supplies. "And send Cotton back in here."

Over the next few days, whenever Chris was not on watch, she made sure that the prisoners were taken care of and remained as comfortable as prisoners aboard a pirate ship could be. She was no doctor, but she also checked on Norrington's leg and sometimes would stay in his cell, even if icy silence was the only exchange between them. It was good to see her brother, no matter what she had said to Jack that one night. Granted, it wasn't as good as if he wasn't mad at her, but his presence sufficed. It almost made her wish that she had never left home, and that she and Norrington were close once more. Almost.

Loki often came with her, and while he did not leave her shoulder, he still would shriek or rub his paws together menacingly as if he were plotting something devious. One day, as Norrington ate his dinner of meat and a biscuit, he stated, "I don't enjoy your ape."

"I don't think he likes you either." Chris replied with a smile, "But I think he's sweet on yer buttons, that's for sure." Indeed, Loki's eyes at that very moment were trained upon the gleaming brass dotting Norrington's coat. When there wasn't icy silence in the cell, the pair had some conversations like this, but they never lasted long. Norrington would fall into a moody silence, or one of the pirates would call for Chris' aid, or her watch would be called. Chris now bent down to check Norrington's splint and he looked up at her.

"Christiana… I have something to tell you." He said softly.

"What's that?" She asked, not really paying a large amount of attention to his words, for she was unsure if the splint really was tight enough. She didn't want Norrington's leg to heal crooked; if it did, it would have to be broken again.

Norrington sucked in a lungful of air. "Christiana…" He stopped her with a simple touch, but she did not look up, for she thought she saw a loose bandana. Norrington gave up trying to garner her attention and he said softly, "Our mother is dead."

Chris' head snapped up from the splint and she looked into Norrington's face, her jaw dropped. "I… She…" Chris' mouth moved for a few moments like a fish out of water before she was able to find her words. "When? How?" Her mother, dead? That was impossible; her mother was scarcely more than twice her age. She couldn't be dead; James had to be putting her on, he had to be.

"Last winter she caught a cold that never left her. She died before spring." Norrington replied quietly. His face was pinched with sorrow, and his blue eyes were mournful. "I'm sorry you had to learn this way. I've been wrestling with whether or not to tell you."

"No… Oh Jamie, no." Chris backed away from her brother and began crying, her chest bouncing up and down with sobs. Norrington could not move to comfort her, regardless of whether or not he wanted to. After a few minutes, Chris' sobbing abated. "I never… I never got to see her again after…"

"Yes." Norrington said softly. "Your father tells me that one of her last thoughts was where you were." Norrington looked down at his feet. "I… was going to go back to London when the _Dauntless_ returned to Port Royale. I have leave." He paused and then said quietly, "If you were able to get me there, you could come with me, Christiana. You could come with me and never look back." The Commodore looked up and sought out his sister's eyes. "I know your father misses you so very much, Christiana. No one would ever have to know."

Chris could hardly believe what she was hearing. Leave? Leave the _Black Pearl_? Just jump ship and never look back? Could she start a new life, a different life? Did she want to? And was James just trying to use her to get him off of the ship? With the sudden tumult of emotions going through her, Chris felt dizzy. _Put one foot in front of the other, girl, or else you may trip._ She sighed and turned for the door, sniffing away her tears and locking her grief away until she could reach her cabin. "Your leg looks fine. I'll see ye tomorrow." Loki let out a chitter as she locked the cell and left.

After replacing the key, she ran up the stairs, the words Norrington said echoing in her head. She was so preoccupied by them that she knocked into Jack. She stumbled from the impact and skidded down a few steps. "'ey, watch where ye're going, this is a pirate ship." Jack joked, helping her up. "Apologies about that, seriously."

"Lemme push you down the stairs and we'll be even." Chris retorted playfully, feeling a stinging in her knee where it met the stair below.

Jack smiled. "Some other time, love." Chris started to continue up the stairs but Jack stopped her. "Were you talking with Norrington?" He asked.

Chris narrowed her eyes questioningly. "Yes."

"Why's that?"

"Because I can…?"

Jack laughed, but it had no mirth in it. "What have ye been talking about?" He asked, crossing his arms.

"He told me just now that… That me mum died." Chris could feel the tears start welling up just at those words. _Damn it, Chris, wait until you get in your cabin to start acting like a girl_…

"I am sorry Chris. Truly." Jack said, reaching forward and squeezing the shoulder that Loki was not perched on. "'e's not tryin' to hoodwink ye into lettin' 'im go though, is he?"

"Well…" Chris began, and then regretted it.

"…Well what?" Her captain pressed.

"He mentioned me arranging getting him to Port Royale." Chris admitted.

"That limy bastard." Jack cursed, looking down at the entrance to the brig. He placed a hand upon his sword. "I'll give him what for –"

"No, Jack, no!" Chris said, grabbing his hand. "He… He wanted me to come with him and return to England. He said my father misses me." Chris let go of his hand. "That's why he mentioned that."

Jack's lips parted in surprise. He paused for a moment before saying the following. "Chris… You are hereby relieved of your duty of taking care of the prisoners –"

"Jack, what the bleeding –?" Jack silenced his quartermaster with a raised hand.

"Ye're relieved of that duty until they are no longer with us." Jack replied. "And I'd be very comforted if you only went to the brig with an escort, preferably Gibbs or Anamaria."

Was he questioning her loyalty? "Captain, I am just as loyal to you as I ever was before, and I would never do anything that I thought harmful to the well being of you or this ship without your leave." Chris stated firmly. "And I am offended that you might think my relationship with my brother could ever prove detrimental, if that is what you're implying. I will obey you, sir, but I will not be happy about it." With that, she shoved past her captain and up the stairs, leaving him to dwell on her words.

That night, Chris had a strange dream. Norrington was hobbling along with the cane Jack had stolen at Port Royale. "Why did you run off? Your husband has just arrived!" He said. He then changed into a skin-and-bone man with a beauty mark, and then he turned into her father. He was exactly as she remembered: his brown beard and hair not even showing the slightest traces of gray and his green eyes wet with tears.

"Oh, Christiana… Christiana! Why didn't you come home? Why didn't you see your mother one last time?"

And then he turned into Jack, and Norrington was at his side. "Cheers to the new 'usband, love! 'ave lots of babies!" Jack took a swig from a rum bottle and Norrington cheered.

Chris bolted upright in her bed, covered in cold sweat. She came to her senses and realized it was all false. She raked two hands through her hair, surprised the dream had bothered her so much, especially when much of it was just nonsense and anxiety. It was still dark, and Chris didn't even think it was time for the morning watch yet. She slid out of bed, not disturbing the monkey that slept on the headboard, and slipped into her clothes before leaving her cabin. She walked silently down the stairs, her long brown hair hanging loose over her shoulders. She really wanted to speak to Norrington. What if she could go home? What if this whole piratical life could be forgotten could be washed away? Did she really want that? Slowly, she made her way to the brig.

Most of the prisoners were sleeping when she entered, but Chris was surprised to see someone else in the cell with Norrington. She stopped as she neared the cell; she stood right behind a lantern so her face was partially hidden. Jack was the other person in the cell, and he and Norrington were just finishing a conversation.

"So we have an accord?" Jack asked him, standing and offering his hand.

"We do." Norrington replied. They shook hands and Jack stood, opened and locked the door of the cell, and walked right past Chris. He cast a look behind him at his quartermaster but said nothing. Chris walked to the bars of the cell and leaned against them, peering inside. Norrington was staring at the floor.

"What did you agree on?" Chris asked. Norrington jumped and looked at her.

"Jack is to… barter my sailors and me a passage on a merchant ship to Port Royale." He replied.

"What does he expect in return?" Chris asked. This was very interesting.

"He expects me to never fire upon the _Black Pearl_ ever again... Or the next time he sees me, I may not walk away from him." Norrington replied. "I am sure that… I am sure that if you wish, you could buy passage to Port Royale as well, Christiana. Procure a dress, come with me…"

Chris sighed and stared at Norrington for a long time. No, she could not leave this place. She could not leave her captain and her crewmates and pretend it never happened, even if it did sound appealing. The _Black Pearl_ was her home. "No." She said finally.

"Why not, Christiana?" Norrington shook his head and let out a short laugh lacking any humor. "God, I do not understand you! What you're doing is unlawful, it's dangerous –"

"I don't understand you, James." Chris replied. "If I am happy with my life, why should you try to do anything about it? Why should you try to press me into a mold I won't fit?"

Norrington looked at his sister, his lips set in a thin line. "Because I know Mother would want more for you. So would your father."

Chris felt tears threatening to spill for the third time that day. "God, Jamie, why did you have to come and muck everything up?" She asked, closing her eyes against the tears. "I was perfectly happy without you here to tell me about Mum – Why is it that every time we meet, you have to do something to interfere?"

"Can you blame me for trying to take care of my little sister?" Norrington asked. "Do you not think that I haven't missed you? Do you not think that I didn't think myself at fault when you never arrived in Port Royale all those years ago? Are you that selfish?" His last words cut like a knife, and he could see it in his sister's face. She turned to leave. "Christiana, I didn't mean it –" Norrington called after her.

"I may be selfish, James." Chris replied, not looking at him. "But at least I am happy with the life I've made for myself." Without another word, Chris continued into and up the stairwell without a second look.

Three days later, Jack had bartered several pieces of treasure to a merchant ship called the _Tenant_ for Norrington and his sailors off the coast of Cuba. The merchant ship was awfully gracious, especially since they had expected the _Pearl_ to attack them before the colors of truce were run up. After the sailors boarded, Chris and Athos half-carried Norrington up from the brig. They paused for a moment before crossing the plank to the _Tenant_. They carried him under both arms and helped him settle onto the deck. Athos turned to re-board the _Black Pearl_, and Chris turned to her brother as he leaned against the bulkhead of the merchant ship. Loki had accompanied her, and was once again eyeing the brass buttons on Norrington's uniform.

"Are you sure you do not want to come with me?" Norrington whispered to Chris. "I know we had our words the other night, and I'm sorry." His blue eyes showed that he was being honest. He shrugged his shoulders as he continued. "No one needs to know you're a pirate… You could live well with me, Christiana." Norrington sounded as though he was pleading, and there was a wanting look in his eyes. "We could be a family again, like the old days."

Chris sighed. She had made a decision, but her brother's pleading didn't make it anymore easy. "No, James. We can never go back to the way it was before, no matter how much either of us may want to. Give my regards to my father and please…" Chris swallowed hard. "I suggest you and him take the next words I'm going to say to heart. Let go of me, James. Just let go."

Norrington sighed heavily and looked down at his coat. He reached for one of the brass buttons and pulled on it until it came off. He rolled it between his fingers and then reached up, offering it palm out to Loki. The monkey eyed him warily before slowly reaching forward and taking the brass button, and then holding it greedily to his chest. "Goodbye, Christiana." Norrington said softly. He turned and hobbled across the deck of the _Tenant_.

Chris returned to the _Pearl_ and pulled the plank back across the gap. Grappling hooks were removed and the ships parted. As the two ships pulled away from each other, Chris joined her captain at the wheel, Loki fiddling with his new treasure. After a long silence, she asked, "Why did you let them go?"

Jack turned the wheel slightly. "Because Norrington, even though he is a mangy git, is still yer family. And I know how precious family can be to people like us." Jack then lowered his voice, "And I heard what ye said to him. Ye have courage Chris. And ye just did a very brave, very strong thing. You have my compliments."

Chris smiled gratefully at him. It meant a lot to have a compliment from Jack over such a personal thing. "Thank ye, Captain."

oOo

Calling all cars we've got another victim  
'Cause my love has become an affliction  
What did you expect from me?  
What did you expect from me?

I'm sorry but I think I failed to mention  
That I lied at my very first confession  
What did you expect from me?  
What did you expect from me?

'Cause this has been building since I have been breathing  
And I know how it's going to end

So will you scatter my ashes where they won't be found?  
I kept my word when I swore that I would let you down  
And now that I'm gone  
Try to forget me and just move on  
So will you scatter my ashes where they won't be found?  
I kept my word and you hate me for it now  
You knew all along  
Try to forget me and just move on

Oh my dear, what have I gone and done now?  
It's curtain call, I'm about to take my last bow  
What did you expect from me?  
What did you expect from me?

Without giving away the entire ending  
I ruined the evening again

So will you scatter my ashes where they won't be found?  
I kept my word when I swore that I would let you down  
And now that I'm gone  
Try to forget me and just move on  
So will you scatter my ashes where they won't be found?  
I kept my word and you hate me for it now  
You knew all along  
Try to forget me and just move on

I don't have love left inside, inside  
And I don't have love left inside, inside  
Are you desperate for an answer?  
I don't have an ounce of good left in me now  
That's why I walked out

So will you scatter my ashes where they won't be found?  
I kept my word when I swore that I would let you down  
And now that I'm gone  
Try to forget me and just move on  
So will you scatter my ashes where they won't be found?  
I kept my word and you hate me for it now  
You hate me for it now  
Try to forget me and just move on

I am not the one that you should blame  
So take what I left you for the pain  
I am not the one that you should blame  
So take what I left you for the pain  
And do your best to forget my name


	5. Whiskey Girl

**Chapter Five  
Whiskey Girl**

Chris backed up a few paces. "Look out below!" She was at the opening where the gangplank would normally be placed in the _Black Pearl_'s bulkhead. She was wearing her usual mid-calf trousers, man's shirt, and of course, no shoes. She leaned her rear end backwards to help with momentum before she catapulted herself forward, her bare feet slapping against the deck. She jumped off the side of the ship and brought her knees to her chest. She hit the water with a huge splash and she sank down into the pristine blue water, bubbles swirling around her. After a few seconds, she broke the surface, a large grin on her face.

"Wow Chris! That was bigger than Pinters' splash!" Ragetti said. He was floating nearby with Pintel.

"Was not!" Pintel objected, slapping a spray of water at his friend.

Ragetti cringed and then fired back, "Was too!"

Pintel shoved another wave of water at his friend. "Not!"

Ragetti replied with a wave of his own. "Too!" As they continued speaking, they would alternately splash the other as they answered.

"Not!"

"Too!"

"Notnotnotnotnotnot!"

"Tootootootootootoo!" At this point, Pintel swam to Ragetti and dunked him beneath the water's surface.

The _Black Pearl_ was sitting off the shore of Madagascar. Madagascar was largely considered a pirate's paradise where they rested for the winter. There were even some pirates who inhabited the island year-round. Sails belonging to ships of fellow pirates dotted the horizon to the east and west of the _Pearl_. The _Black Pearl _had just arrived the day before and after the swabbing of the decks, moving the supplies from the hold, and stowing the sails, the pirates were officially beginning to enjoy their winter.

Pintel held Ragetti fast underneath the surface of the water. Large air bubbles were rising to the top, but the frequency was beginning to slow. "Pintel, let 'im go already!" Chris laughed. "I don't know about you, but I don't want my winter kicked off with a funeral."

"Aw, fine!" He shoved Ragetti a few feet further under the surface before releasing the man's shoulders and swimming away. Ragetti popped to the surface, gasping for air. His wooden eye was swiveling around in alarm until he shook his head, water droplets spraying everywhere.

"That… wasn't… nice… Pinters!" Ragetti gasped, pointing at Pintel's retreating form. He coughed. "I'm not ready to die! I still need to save me immortal soul, and I ain't ready for that neither!"

Chris laughed and flipped onto her back, letting her body's buoyancy float her on the waves. The sun blinded her, and so she focused her eyes elsewhere. She looked to the shore and spotted the tents that had been erected by the crew of the _Black Pearl_, as well as the makeshift huts that were being erected. Some people did like a more stable winter home and so they would build a hut or string up tents so that they could sleep on land during the winter. What particularly caught her attention was her captain. He had strung a hammock between two palm trees that had withstood erosion and were still on the shoreline and not back in the tree line. Jack now lay in the hammock, his limbs hanging over the side, and his hat covering his face. Chris also spotted her very own Loki lounging in the branches above.

The day before, Jack had dropped one of the sails on Chris as a joke. Chris was lucky it hadn't broken her neck, or some other body part. And now as she watched Jack, probably sleeping peacefully, a devilish thought entered her mind. Chris laughed to herself and turned herself onto her stomach. She breast stroked to shore and crept as quietly as she could up the sandy beach to the hammock. Pintel and Ragetti watched from the water. The pirates erecting tents or huts paid little mind to the dripping quartermaster. When Chris approached the hammock, she heard a soft snoring issuing from underneath the hat. Testing the waters, she gently began rocking it back and forth. There was no movement from Jack. Chris laughed to herself once more before she picked up the rocking until – There! The hammock flipped over and dumped Jack face-first into the sand. Jack let out a yell once he hit the ground and then looked up to find the culprit, but by then Chris had already scampered back to the surf. He raised a finger at his quartermaster as she shot him a wild grin.

"You! It was you!" He shouted as he pulled himself to his feet. "I know it was!"

Chris pulled a face and then stood with both hands on her hips, her chest puffed out and the surf frothing around her ankles. "And just what are ye goin' to do about it?" She asked very matter-of-factly.

Jack growled. "Mutiny! I won't have it!" He brushed sand off of his clothes and dusted off his hat. He gently set it back upon his hammock before raising both his arms so that they were bent to give him momentum before charging into the water. Chris backed into the surf as Jack plowed into it and, his arms spread, tackled his quartermaster. Her legs gave out and she fell into the water, Jack on top of her. For a few seconds, they were both submerged in the foaming tide, Jack's dreds and Chris' hair creating halos about their faces. Chris rolled over and stood, as the water was shallow enough for her to stand in and still have her head above the surface. She moved her hair out of her face as Jack surfaced as well.

"Sparrow! This is war!" Chris challenged, an impish grin on her face. She lunged for his knees and they went out from under him. After a few minutes of each of them rolling about in the surf, shoving each other down below before the other could run ashore, Jack finally pulled himself free from Chris and struggled ashore. Chris broke the surface of the water in a spray of foam and a flip of her hair. She was not going to give up that easily. She kicked up the surf as she ran after Jack, and he turned just in time to have Chris collide with him. They both fell to the sand.

"Chris! Fer the love of God, can't a man get any peace with ye around?" Jack asked, spitting a dred out of his mouth. He put his hands up to push Chris from him and their hands met, creating a precarious position.

"…No?" Chris replied. Jack sighed and then gave a wry chuckle. Chris smiled at him and a drip of seawater dripped from the tip of her nose and dropped upon his cheek. Chris suddenly noticed the proximity of their bodies to each other, and that some of the other pirates were watching. Immediately, she was extremely uncomfortable. "Apologies, captain. I was out of line." She climbed off of him and knuckled her brow.

Jack stood and shook the sand from his clothes and hair. "Accepted. Now, if ye'll excuse me, I have some strenuous relaxing to do." He walked to his hammock, picked up his hat, righted the hammock, and climbed back in. The other pirates had returned to their tasks and Chris sat in the sand, keeping an eye on her captain. He looked at her and smiled softly before placing his hat back over his eyes.

The next day, those who had not built huts were working on the task, as opposed to those who had wisely completed the chore the day before. Chris was helping Athos put leaves on the roof of a just finished hut when she heard, "Ahoy there!" from behind her. The voice was unfamiliar. She turned around and saw three people walking towards their camp. She wondered who the visitors were and what they wanted, and looked to the _Pearl_ where Jack and Gibbs were tending to repairs. "We've visitors." She said to Athos, and he turned to greet them with his quartermaster.

"Hello." Chris said as soon as they were in proximity that wouldn't warrant a yell to be heard. "How may I help you?"

"Who's yer king?" The leader, a man with fiery red hair and a scar across his cheek asked. When referring to a ship's or group of pirates' leader, he was always known as their "King" on Madagascar. It was tradition, and if nothing else, it would inflate the pirate captain's ego.

"My king is Captain Jack Sparrow." Chris answered. She was a bit wary about these visitors, but she didn't know why. "And yours?"

"Our king be Giles de Fayette." A man to the right of red-hair answered. His hair was dark and slightly receding at the top of his head and he wore a slight beard. "Scourge of the English Channel, feared by –!" The woman next to him elbowed him in the side and he stowed it.

"What business do ye have with our king?" Chris asked, folding her arms. The infamous Captain Jack Sparrow could be the recipient of many foolish duels or, who knew, maybe assassination attempts. She caught herself for a moment, thinking she might be acting a little funny in the head.

"Our king invites him and his officers to dine at our camp tonight." The woman spoke up. Her hair was long and black, and she seemed rather pallid to be a sailor.

"I shall tell our king." Chris replied, turning back to the hut.

"King Giles desires an answer now." The red-haired man stated. "We shall wait here until we have our answer."

Chris scowled but nodded. She was about to say that she would fetch him, but she then saw Jack and Gibbs returning in one of the jolly boats from the _Pearl_. "Here he comes right now." Chris replied. She waved Jack over and after he and Gibbs had beached their jolly boat, he sauntered over to the group, his white shirt marked with sweat and his hand hovering at the grip of his pistol. Chris could tell that he also thought something was up. "Captain, these pirates would like to speak to you." Chris said when he approached.

"Aye?" He asked, his hand staying upon the polished wood handle that stuck from his sash.

"Our king, Gilles de Fayette, wishes for you and yer officers to dine wit' him tonight." The red-haired man announced, bending slightly at the waist.

Jack tapped his chin in thought. "Tell yer king I accept." He finally responded "Where be yer camp?"

"T'ree camps to the north." Red-hair nodded. "We will inform our king and will expect you around sundown." He signaled to the other two, and they turned and marched in the direction they came.

"We'll be winin' and dinin' tonight!" Jack said, turning to smile at Chris.

"Are ye sure about that? I don't really trust 'em." Chris said, scowling as she turned back to her hut.

"Says the woman who tried to drown me in jest yesterday!" Jack asked, dodging into her sight. "Why not?"

"I just get cautious when strangers come askin' after me captain." Chris replied.

"Well, thank ye for yer consideration, Chris. It's sweet. But I'm pretty sure I can take of meself." Jack grinned and as he walked away, turned back and said, "Loki can't come."

"Why not?" Chris turned to look at him.

"Because 'e's a barmy little git, that's why."

"Aye, captain. I'll find ye before sunset." Chris replied, picking up a stray piece of wood. "Athos, could you hand me that saw?"

Later, Chris had cleaned her face and brushed her hair into acceptability. While Chris was not one for appearances usually, Jack had mentioned that he wanted everyone who went looking their best. Chris tore apart her cabin trying to find articles of clothing that didn't have tar stains or rips, but that seemed more elusive than a mirage of an oasis in the middle of a desert. Once she had finally found clean clothes and her cabin looked like it had been fired upon by cannon, she joined Jack and Gibbs on the beach. Besides Jack, Gibbs and Chris were the only pirates who could really qualify as 'officers.' Chris had a knife up her sleeve, just in case. She also saw as they set off that Gibbs was wearing his coat buttoned in the front, and the slight outline of a pistol was at his hip. She was happy that she was not the only one who wasn't trusting of their dinner hosts. It never hurt to be cautious.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, they came to the camp of Giles de Fayette. There were tents pitched up in a semi circle close to the shore, and these tents were made of colorful silk. There was an open fire pit over which three wild hogs were roasting slowly on spits. Barrels of spirits, each labeled 'Wine,' 'Rum,' 'Ale,' or 'Whiskey' in not only English but French were lined up on the beach. Once Chris read the title "Whiskey" on one of the barrels, her eyes glittered. She had first imbibed whiskey in Tortuga when she was younger, and, despite her hangover the next morning, immediately fell in love with the strong drink. When the opportunity arose, she would always choose whiskey over any other spirit. Jack usually didn't keep whiskey aboard, so Chris had to be satisfied with rum.

"Greetin's." The red-haired man walked forward to greet them, wearing a long green tunic over his canvas trousers. He seemed much less hostile now that he was in his own camp. "If you would follow me…" He led Gibbs, Chris, and Jack into the largest of the tents, a dark blue one emblazoned with silver fleur-de-lis.

Inside, the sand was covered with plush carpets, and instead of chairs and tables, there were huge pillows for sitting and low tables. The place looked very Oriental in nature. Their host sat at a table, his legs crossed. He was dressed in a rich, blue silk tunic with a yellow scarf about his waist and black trousers. He had brown hair cut just below his ears, a long mustache with the ends curled upwards, and he was feeding small scraps of meat to a hawk on his shoulder.

"Ah! Welcome, welcome, my guests!" He said, opening his arms as the three pirates entered. Chris thought that he had a French accent, and when he continued speaking, her suspicion was confirmed. "I am so happy zat you have accepted my invitation! Please, sit!" Chris looked at Jack as she, Gibbs, and their captain kneeled down and settled themselves on some puffy pillows. "Somezing to drink, per-aps?" The man asked. He clapped his hands and the bearded man from earlier that day came forward. "Marc, get our guests whatever zey would like."

"Rum." Jack grunted as Marc looked at them.

"Same." Gibbs replied.

"Whiskey, please." Chris said, unable to contain a grin in anticipation of getting to drink her favorite liquor.

"The lady has a strong stomach." The man stated, smiling as Marc departed. "Now, I believe introductions are in order. I am Giles de Fayette, captain of ze ship, _Tout de Suite_." He smiled. "It is not a well known ship west of ze English Channel and Mediterranean, as of yet. I plan to fix zat." Giles looked at Jack. "And you, monsieur, are ze famous Captain Jack Sparrow. I am honored to have you in my tent."

Jack grinned in appreciation of the compliment. "Thank ye very much, Captain de Fayette. And your hospitality is remarkable."

"And who is zis gentleman and mademoiselle?" Giles asked, looking to Chris and Gibbs.

"Ah yes. This is me first mate, Joshamee Gibbs." Jack said, putting a hand on the man's shoulder.

"Nice to meet ya." Gibbs said, bowing his head once.

Jack motioned to the woman. "And this is me quartermaster, Christiana Thomas."

Chris shot Jack a look upon him using her full first name, and he smiled at her in a teasing way. "Call me Chris, Captain de Fayette." She bade.

"Chris." Giles said, smiling. "_Bon_." Marc arrived with three goblets on a silver tray. Once Jack took his goblet, Giles held up his own small glass of drink. "A toast to ze prosperity of piracy!" He said.

All raised their glasses and took a swig. The strong taste of whiskey made Chris' tongue curl and her lips pucker, but she drank half of the goblet before setting it down. She felt a bit lightheaded for a second and she shuddered partly from drinking so much whiskey so fast and partly from the ecstasy of the taste.

On later reflection, Chris should have slowed down in her drinking of the strong alcohol, as it soon caused her to become what she thought was only slightly drunk. As any other person would say, though, she was beyond drunk. After her third goblet of whiskey, her vision had skewed. After her sixth, she couldn't really make sense of what she was saying. She soon lost count and seemed to find the littlest comment with the smallest speck of humor hilarious. Several of Giles' crew members had joined their captain and had taken to observing Chris' drunken antics. She didn't seem to notice.

"You're looking fuzzy and black, my fuzzy demon friends!" Chris said, examining some of Jack's dreadlocks a bit too close for comfort. The whole tent burst into laughter.

"Per'aps she does not 'ave as strong a stomach as I zought." Giles said to Jack as Chris departed back to her goblet of whiskey.

"Don't be mistaken, she can drink rum with the best of them." Jack replied as Chris drained her remaining whiskey.

"Gibbs! Gibbs, come here!" Chris beckoned, almost tripping over a pillow. Gibbs shot a sidelong look at Jack and Giles and pulled himself to his feet. Chris put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Alright, alright… Alright." She now whispered loud enough for all to hear. "We're goin' t' show 'em how to – how to do a jig!"

"Chris, neither of us know how to do a jig." Gibbs replied.

"SHHHHhhh….!" She turned to the pirates of the _Tout de Suite_. "Music? Music, any music?" The woman, named Katherine, from earlier that day broke out a fiddle and began playing. Chris bowed to Gibbs and then linked arms with him, trying to do the complicated steps of an Irish jig. She failed miserably and ended up taking Gibbs down with her as her legs tangled up. There was much laughter and Marc and the red-haired man, named Whit, helped them to their feet. There was laughter, drinks all around, and then Marc offered to show Chris how to really dance an Irish jig.

As they slowly went through the steps and other sailors chipped in with their own dancing, Giles dreamily stated, "Ah, I do love zeez Madagascar nights. Zey are zo cheery."

"Is this yer first time winterin' here?" Jack asked, taking a sip of his rum. "I don't recall seein' ye here before."

"_Oui_. My crew would usually hide in a cove off of France where my wife and daughters live during ze winter."

"You have a family?" Jack asked, arching an eyebrow.

Giles nodded and asked, "You do not?"

"Nay. I don't. I find it suffocatin' in my line of work." Jack replied with a grin.

"You know, _monsieur_," Giles leaned closer to him on the table. "I zought as you once did. And zen I met Yolande and I knew zat it would not be, as you said, suffocating." He leaned conspiratorially close to Jack. "Truly, I find ze most pleasure in life not from plundering ships, but from coming home to my wife, my daughters, and seeing ze joy on zeir sweet faces when I return." Giles smiled and sat back up, clapping his hands to the beat of the fiddle.

The next day had dawned beautifully. But Chris did not see it. "Chris! Wake up!" Jack bellowed, standing over her cabin's bed the next afternoon. Chris, who had been sleeping, sat up quickly, but then lay back down in her bed as it felt like her head was shattering. She was paying dearly for her love of whiskey with every throb of her pulse.

She groaned and grabbed her head. "What do ye want, Sparrow?"

"That's 'captain,' _Christiana_." Jack replied, gloating with a smile.

Chris groaned. "What do ye want, _captain_?" She moaned. She felt like her head was a full powder keg, and the louder the tone, the more likely it was going to explode.

Jack grinned in victory. "I invited King Giles here for dinner tonight. You and Ana are to help Cot cook. Give it a woman's touch." He left her bed and headed for the door.

"You know Sparrow – _Captain_ – sometimes I really, really hate you." She grumbled.

"The feelin's mutual, love!" Jack replied, shutting the door loudly behind him. Chris twitched. After some mental coaxing, she slowly pulled herself from bed, washed her face in cold water, and changed into a set of clothes that didn't reek of whiskey. As she passed the galley, Loki scurried out and climbed up her shoulder. He rode along on her shoulders on the jolly boat ride to the shore. She arrived and saw that Cotton had started a fire pit to cook over in the middle of the beach, just as it had been at Giles' camp. He currently had erected a spit over the flames. Anamaria was cleaning several birds for the dinner, and Athos was rolling out kegs of alcohol from a nearby jolly boat.

Chris reached into her pocket and felt that her bandana had been stuffed there. She pulled it out and tied the faded black-and-white damask cloth around her head to keep her hair back as she approached Cotton. "What do ye want me to do, Cot?" She asked, wincing in the bright sunlight. Cotton picked up a coconut and presented it, and then pointed to the tree line. His parrot took flight from his shoulder and landed in the top of one of the trees, right atop a cluster of the fruit, and then returned to his master. "Will do, Cot." She grabbed a burlap bag that had formerly held flour. She would now use it to carry the coconuts. Chris held it by its neck and headed to the tree line.

Walking over to the tree, Chris examined the trunk. It was free of branches that she could pull herself up on, at least where she was standing. She bit her lip in thought and realized she could use the burlap bag to help shimmy on up. She ripped the seam so that she had a long piece of fabric and tossed the fabric around the trunk of the tree. She wound each end around her fists and, leaning back so that the fabric was taught, she curled her legs around the tree trunk and began slinking upwards. Loki rode unsteadily on her shoulder, screeching at the times she was unsteady. Burlap was not the best fabric for this sort of activity, for the coarse fabric slipped at times against the trunk, but with Chris' strength and a bit of flailing, she made it work.

When Chris reached the top she was breathing hard, her forehead damp with sweat, and her head pounding even more from the previous night of imbibing alcohol. She pulled herself up onto the sturdiest branch in the tree and leaned against the trunk to calm herself and try not to vomit. Loki climbed up into the branches of the tree and found himself quite a sporting time of trying to catch any insects in the leaves and eat them. When Chris had caught her breath and didn't feel like she'd be seeing last night's dinner for a second time, she began the retrieval of coconuts, perched rather precariously between two branches with her bottom hanging down.

The key to picking the coconuts was actually to twist them from the stalk, not pull on them. Slowly, dropped coconuts began dotting the sand. As one coconut fell, Pintel and Ragetti emerged from the tree line with firewood in their arms. Pintel looked up to see where the fallen coconut had come from and was greeted with the most prominent sight of Chris' rear.

"Oi Chris!" Pintel called, smiling widely, "Why don't you make that tree sway a little bit? I could come help you." His grin widened.

"Pinters, that's inappropriate!" Ragetti objected once he had looked up and seen the same sight.

"Oh, very witty you sod." Chris called, craning her head backwards so that she saw an upside-down image of the two pirates. "Why don't ye take yer wood to Cotton before I throttle you for insubordination?"

"I'd like to see you try!" Pintel replied. Ragetti whimpered in alarm at his friend's cheek.

"My pleasure." Chris twisted a coconut from the tree and lobbed it backwards in an arc. Pintel dropped his firewood as he dodged the falling fruit, but Ragetti was not as quick. It hit him in the shoulder and he let out a cry of discomfort. "Ack, sorry Rags!" Chris cried.

"Like I said –" Pintel said, but he was silenced as another coconut sailed down, hitting him right between the legs.

"Take a cold bath, boy!" Chris crowed in triumph as Pintel keeled face forward into the sand. She went to pull herself up onto a branch so she could slide down the trunk as Pintel painfully pulled himself to his feet. He grabbed the offending coconut and pulled his arm back.

"Pinters, no –!" Ragetti cried.

Pintel launched the coconut into the air just as Chris found her footing on a branch and turned to look down at the two pirates below. All that filled her vision was the flying fruit which hit her square in the forehead. Right before it hit, she saw that she hadn't twisted the stem completely off, but had left a jagged stump on it. **WHAM**! Her body went slack, and she pitched forward off of the tree branch. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

Chris didn't often fall unconscious, but when she did, coming out of it was always the same. It all began with hearing voices as if they were underwater, but all she could see was black. Slowly, her hearing would sharpen until it was clear and her senses would then come back to her.

"Chris! 'ey, Chris!"

"Poppet? Poppet?"

"Whiskey girl, wake up!"

Chris fluttered her eyes, emerging from darkness as her hearing came all the way back, and saw a ring of people around her. There was Jack, Athos, Ragetti, Anamaria, Cotton, Giles, and a man with long black hair that she didn't know.

"What happened?" She asked. Her head, while it had felt like it would explode earlier, now felt as though it had. It felt wobbly.

"We arrived as soon as Pintel hit you with ze coconut." Giles said, smiling. "Wonderful to see you again, Chris. Despite ze circumstances."

"You fell from the tree, but the sand… more or less cushioned you." Jack said, grinning. "Pintel's busy cleanin' the head right now, but ye being quartermaster, ye can choose a better form of punishment if you so wish."

Chris smiled weakly. "Let me think what he'd hate most and I'll get back to ye." With Ragetti's help, she climbed to her feet, brushing the sand off her breeches as she did. Her forehead throbbed and she felt something warm on it. She gingerly touched the spot and winced as sand got into open flesh. When she drew her hand away, blood was on her fingertips. The jagged edge of the coconut must have cut her, she figured.

"Alright there, Chris?" Anamaria asked.

"Aye. I'm fine. If ye'll excuse me, I'm going to go and… fix this." She replied, wiping the blood on her trousers. She smiled at all assembled and then headed into the trees. She knew that nearby was a freshwater stream where she could wash the blood from her face and gather her wits before returning to the camp. Plus, some cold water on her aching head sounded really good right about now. She arrived at the stream momentarily and went to a bend where the water pooled and became quite deep. Chris and Anamaria usually used this place to bathe in previous years for the water was deep and it had enough underbrush surrounding it that one could hear if another person was coming.

She knelt on the shore, removed her bandana, and leaned forward, dunking her head and face into the water. She let out a steady stream of air bubbles as her fingers gently worked her face, washing the blood from her forehead and rinsing any sand or dirt from it. When done, she threw her head up out of the water, sending a spray of water backward with her hair. Chris then pulled up her bandana and started drying her hair with it. Once she was satisfied, she tucked her bandana into her trouser pocket and turned around. As she did, she was startled to see that someone had been standing behind her.

"Oi!" Startled, she lost her balance for the second time that day and fell backwards into the water. The 'something' was the man with black hair that had been back at the coconut tree, and as Chris surfaced, she saw him laughing in great amusement. She now observed the man of her discomfort with a scrutinizing eye. His thick black hair fell to just below his shoulders and he had just a hint of facial hair. Instead of wearing tunics like Giles and his crew, he wore boots to his knees, a white shirt with long sleeves, buck-skin trousers, and a black cloak drawn over his shoulders, which Chris found unwarranted in the heat of Madagascar. Indeed, it seemed that most of his attire was too warm for the climate. But, most astonishing of all, were his eyes. One was green, and the other crystal blue. Chris had never seen a human with two different colored eyes before.

"Unsteady there, Whiskey Girl?" The man asked, offering his hand to help Chris from the water. He spoke without accent. Chris didn't accept his hand.

"The name is Chris." She said tartly, heaving herself from the bend. Water dripped from her as she kneeled on the ground and then stood up. A sudden wind blew through the trees, immediately cutting through Chris' wet clothes and causing her to be chilled not only from the breeze, but from the cold water she just left. She folded her bare arms across her chest and glared at the man. This was his fault. "And you are?"

"Me? My name is Marak," He said, bowing in a mock fashion, "Antony Marak, my lady."

"Oh shut it." She began to shiver even more as the breeze gusted. What was with this wind? "Why are you here anyway? Can't a woman have privacy?"

"My captain, being the gentleman he is, insisted I make sure you were alright."

Chris placed two and two together. "Your captain is Giles, then?"

The man grinned, raising his eyebrows. "You catch on quick." Chris glared at Marak and began shivering violently as the breeze seemed to increase to rip-the-sails-from-the-yardarms speed. "Here," Marak unstrapped his billowing cloak and placed it around her shoulders snugly. "Don't want you catching your death of cold, do we?"

"I wouldn't be shivering if you hadn't surprised me." Chris, pulling the cloak tighter about her waist.

"I apologize." He bowed his head. "Let's head back to your camp." He took her elbow to make sure she wasn't going to find some loose footing and fall back into the water and then the two found a path leading to the beach.

"Thank you for the cloak." Chris said after a moment of walking.

"My pleasure." Marak replied. They stepped over a fallen log.

"I didn't see you last night at your camp." Chris mentioned as they neared the tree line.

"I was attending to one of our sick sailors with the doctor. He's in my gunnery division; I didn't want him to suffer alone. But I most definitely saw you. I think this was after you were in the whiskey, Whiskey Girl." Chris' lips tightened. "You handled yourself with aplomb, considering how much you drank."

"I'm not sure whether ye're trying to compliment me or not." Chris said as they broke out of the tree line and onto the sandy beach. Marak just grinned. They headed for the fire pit, where a vast majority of the pirates were assembled.

"Chris! Ye look like a drowned rat!" Jack called out as the two approached. He roared with glee as her pale face contorted into a look of annoyance. "And I see ye're wearing another person's clothes." He observed the cape. "She's really a charmer, isn't she?" He asked Marak. "You work fast."

Chris closed her eyes and pursed her lips in a look that said she was doing her best not to throttle her captain. "I am hung-over, possibly have a concussion, and have taken an unwarranted dip in a stream. I would enjoy the pleasure of your company, Captain de Fayette," she pulled the cloak from her shoulders, "But I think I would serve all those around me better by going to bed and sleeping off my irritability."

"Of course, Chris." Giles said, dipping forward in a slight bow.

Chris folded the cloak and handed it to Marak. "Thank you for your hospitality." It was the only thing she could think to say, and it sounded awkward rolling off her tongue.

"Like I said, my pleasure, Whiskey Girl." Marak's grin was still present, and he winked at her.

"It's Chris." The woman pressed.

"Alright, Whiskey Girl." With another wink and some chuckles from the crew, Chris headed for her cabin aboard the _Black Pearl_.

oOo

Don't my baby look good in them blue jeans?

Tight on the top with a belly button ring

A little tattoo somewhere in between

She only shows to me

Hey we're going out dancin' she's ready tonight

So damn good-lookin' boys it ain't even right

And when bartender says for the lady

What's it gonna be?

I tell him man...

She ain't into wine and roses

Beer just makes her turn up her nose

And, she can't stand the thought of sippin' champagne

No Cuervo Gold Margaritas

Just ain't enough good burn in tequila

She needs somethin' with a little more edge and a little more pain

She's my little whiskey Girl

She's my little whiskey Girl

My Ragged-on-the-edges girl

Ah, but I like 'em rough

Baby got a '69 mustang

Four on the floor and you ought to hear the pipes ring

I jump behind the wheel and it's away we go

Hey, I drive too fast, but she don't care

Blue bandana tied all up in her hair

Just sittin' there singin' every song on the radio

She ain't into wine and roses

Beer just makes her turn up her nose

And, she can't stand the thought of sippin' champagne

No Cuervo Gold Margaritas

Just ain't enough good burn in tequila

She needs somethin' with a little more edge and a little more pain

She's my little whiskey Girl

My Ragged-on-the-edges girl

Ah, but I like 'em rough

She ain't into wine and roses

Beer just makes her turn up her nose

And, she can't stand the thought of sippin' champagne

No Cuervo Gold Margaritas

Just ain't enough good burn in tequila

She needs somethin' with a little more edge and a little more pain

She's my little whiskey Girl

She's my little whiskey Girl

My Ragged-on-the-edges girl

Ah, but I like 'em rough

No Cuervo Gold Margaritas

Just ain't enough good burn in tequila

She needs somethin' with a little more edge and a little more pain

She's my little whiskey Girl

Oh, she's my little whiskey Girl

My Ragged-on-the-edges girl

Ah, but I like 'em rough


	6. The Orange and Purple Serpent !

**Chapter Six  
The Orange and Purple Serpent**

"There's – There's so many!"

"I know. It's dizzyin' to think of God makin' all of them and arrangin' em, isn't it?"

"What's those three?"

"They're Orion's belt. See how they're in a line?"

Chris, Athos, Pintel, and Ragetti were lying on their backs in the sand, staring into the night sky well away from the main fire pit and the other fires dotting the beach of the _Black Pearl_'s Madagascar camp. Pintel and Ragetti had fallen asleep a short time ago, Loki as well, but Chris was teaching Athos about the stars; things like how to learn one's position from them and how to navigate using them as a guide. Jack thought that, once winter was over, Athos could start being a helmsman for night watches, and so Chris took on the responsibility of training him. Chris found it pleasant, for while Athos was younger than her, there was not a great stretch in years between them and so they got along well.

"Orion? What's that?" Athos asked.

"Well, if you look up and down from the belt, you can tell the points where his arms and legs are supposed to be." Chris pointed out the aforementioned stars with her right hand. "See?"

Athos nodded in understanding. "Why do they call him Orion?"

"Supposedly, he was a friend of the goddess Artemis, and he died when they were hunting, so she sent him up to the stars so she could always see him." Chris heard laughing from the only fire left burning on the beach. Jack and Giles had become fast friends, so every night, either one's crew dined at the other's camp. They were again at the _Black Pearl_'s camp, though this time Chris hadn't been pelted with coconuts and startled into a stream. She preferred it that way.

Chris tried to make out more constellations, but she heard a soft snoring joining Ragetti's and Pintel's shortly. She twisted her head around and saw that Athos had fallen asleep as well. She smiled softly and sat up, leaving Loki fast asleep on Ragetti's chest. _No use in bothering the little ape if he's comfortable_. She stood, brushed sand off of her clothes and walked to the fire without waking those she left behind. Marak, Marc, Whit, and Katherine were sitting at the fire with Giles and Jack.

"Would you like some of your namesake, Whiskey Girl?" Marak asked as she approached, pouring a mug of whiskey from an assortment of nearby bottles. Chris smiled.

"Ye know me weak spot, Marak." She accepted the mug and sat down across from the long haired man. Marak flashed a smile at her as she drank her first sip. She let out an appreciative sigh.

"We've noticed yer tutorin' skills." Jack nodded towards the three sleeping forms (and a half, if you counted Loki) down the beach. "Chris, ye could of bin a teacher. Ye got 'em sleepin' faster than I thought."

Chris smiled sarcastically and made a rude gesture with her hand, which made Jack laugh. She drained her mug and stood, handing it back to Marak. "Thank ye for the drink, mates. I'm turnin' in fer the night. Ta, all." She bowed to the assembled pirates and turned to head to a small hut that had been erected close to the tree line. She and Marak had built it in the previous days. Chris decided to try sleeping on land this winter, and when she began constructing it, Marak showed up and helped. He felt that he needed to apologize for startling her into the stream, and he figured helping her with the task would make them square. Chris wasn't about to argue with the man.

As they built the hut, Chris learned that Marak was originally from the Americas. His father he never knew, but he thought from his black hair that he might have been a Spaniard. At a young age, Marak signed onto a slaver, which revolted Chris. He quickly explained that he did not see how filthy a trade slaving was until just a few years prior when a particularly cruel slaver captain chained several old and young Africans to a spare anchor and sent them to their watery deaths because there was a shortage of food. He then made his way to Europe, trying to find a different trade, and eventually signed on with Giles de Fayette, rose through the crew, and became his first mate. Chris rather liked this self-made man, for she was a self-made woman… to an extent.

Her hut contained only a mat on the ground for sleeping as well as a few books and a carefully placed candle, for a stray spark could set the hut on fire, especially as the winter continued and the wood and leaves dried out. Deciding that lighting the candle wasn't worth the trouble, she felt around until she found her mat. She lay down with her head on her arms, already feeling the calming effects of the whiskey. Within a few minutes, she was slumbering.

She had a dream about her mother that night. Her mother's name was Charlotte, and her hair was the color of dry straw, and her eyes were like the sea after a storm. Charlotte always sang Chris to sleep, every night until Chris left to be married in Jamaica. And now that Chris had learned that her mother had died, she would never again hear the soothing voice outside of her dreams.

In the middle of the night, she felt something slithering over her abdomen. This startled her from her dreams and her eyes opened in the dark. She grabbed for whatever had touched her and felt something smooth and writhing. She immediately deduced that it was a snake. In dim light cast by the moon's rays between the leaves of the roof, she could see that it was purple and orange, a most peculiar coloring that she had never seen before. The snake hissed at her right before its head shot forward. Its jaws opened and closed upon Chris' wrist, and then she could feel that it was pumping venom into her veins.

She must have screamed but if she did, it was cut off abruptly as Chris fell into a mental fog. Before she became lost in disorientation, she tore the snake from her arm, feeling the fangs break through more skin. She grabbed the snake by the head and squeezed as hard as she could, feeling something warm and wet eventually from her efforts, but then she blacked out. She felt like she was falling, forever falling...

The next morning, Jack arose rather early for one who had been drinking the previous night. But one of the _Black Pearl_'s sailors had been caught stealing from the stores of the ship and needed to be punished. As he, Ragetti, Pintel, and Loki approached the hut, he let out a shout of warning, just in case Chris was indecent. He could be a gentleman, sometimes. "Chris! Get up! Ye didn't drink that much whiskey!"

Hearing nothing, Jack threw open the canvas flap serving as the hut's door. "Rise and shine!" He saw that his quartermaster lay still on her mat. Her eyes were open, but… "Chris? ...CHRIS!" He sunk to his knees beside her and wondered if he was gazing into the face of death. He put his hands on either side of her face. She was not cold; on the contrary, her skin was burning up. He waved his hand over her eyes, trying to solicit any response from her. There was nothing, she still lay as if dead. Jack began to panic as Ragetti and Pintel flanked him. He placed his ear over her mouth and could hear quick, almost labored breathing. She was alive. Well, that was something.

"P-Poppet?" Ragetti questioned cautiously, looking over Jack's shoulder. Loki chirruped from his place on Ragetti's shoulder and cocked his head to the side as Jack spotted two puncture marks on her arm. The flesh around the two long, deep wounds had turned a horrible mottled purple color.

"Pintel?" He asked, his brow furrowing. Chris needed medical attention, and she was the one he usually relied on when the need arose. "Go to Giles' camp. I know he has a doctor. Tell him that Chris is sick and ask him if his doc will come and look at her."

"Right away, cap'n." Pintel turned and bumped into the wall of the hut in his haste. The structure shook precariously, but stayed standing. He shook his head before he went out the door.

"What about me, captain?" Ragetti asked.

"Go and get Athos. Both of ye get some blankets and somethin' fer Chris' to lay on besides ground. And fresh water and a bandana or two." Jack didn't look up while he spoke; he was still trying to wake Chris up through some prods and pokes.

"Aye, Captain!" Ragetti turned and fled out the flap, jogging towards another hut, Loki screeching in protest.

Jack took Chris' face into his hands. "Wake up, Chris... Chris..." He pled.

"Chris... Chris... Christiana!"

In Chris' mind, she saw James peek in her doorway. She was six and in the family manor near London. Her bedroom was upholstered in black and white damask and held a four-poster bed, a dressing table with mirror, a couple of bookshelves, a screen for dressing, and a table, where young Chris now sat with her governess Bessie. James was sixteen and he was sporting his brand new Navy uniform, and had just come home on leave. His father, the deceased Admiral Lawrence Norrington, had been in the Navy, and so James had wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. His brown hair was sticking out from under his cap and his face was lit up in a smile.

"Jamie! JAMIE!" She propelled from her chair and into his awaiting arms, which was done with relative ease even though she was wearing a dress. Bessie frowned at this interruption.

James chuckled. "I would squeeze you harder, but I already suspect you can't breathe in that, Thimble." He grinned at his little sister and she mirrored his happiness.

Chris lowered her voice. "Speaking of thimble, do you still have it?"

"Always." James replied. When he had first shipped out months ago, Chris had read in storybooks that some sailors would have small portraits of their sweethearts to look at on long voyages. Since James had no sweetheart (that Chris knew of), she gave her brother her porcelain sewing thimble with a note that said, "Whenever you're lonely, talk to this and pretend it's me!" Since then, James' salutation in his letters to Chris had read "Dear Thimble…"

Chris giggled as Bessie began picking up their books and study materials. "That will be all today, young miss." The governess swept out of the room without a second glance, her silver eyebrows arched in a disapproving manner.

"I see Bessie is still an old sour puss." James whispered into Chris' ear. She smiled and nodded. James set her down and asked, "Where is your father?"

"He had to go to the court." Chris answered. "And Mother went to call upon Mrs. Lambert."

James grinned mischievously. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"If that involves staircases, yes." Their grand past-time (well, since the previous two years) was to race each other down the staircase banisters. The first or second time, however, Chris had slipped from the banister and knocked her head. Lord and Lady Thomas then strictly forbade the activity, but Chris and James snuck races when they could. The two of them now raced from Chris' room down the hallway to the top of a grand staircase. The rail was made of mahogany and gleaming with polish, perfect for banister racing.

"Ladies first." James said grandly, sweeping into a bow and whipping the cap from his head.

"Nu-uh." Chris objected. "You first. Then you can catch me."

James grinned at his little sister before mounting the rail. He pulled his cap tightly back onto his head and pushed himself off. He glided down the rail, landing neatly on his feet at the bottom. He turned and opened his arms wide. "Now you, Lady Thomas!" He did a mock bow.

She blew a raspberry at her brother before pulling herself onto the rail. Making sure her skirt was tucked underneath her legs and bottom, she began sliding down the rail, gaining speed, when all of the sudden, the front door opened. In walked her father with another lord.

"James! Splendid!" Lord Thomas said. He had brown hair and deep green eyes. His hair was currently covered by a wig and he was wearing a rather handsome coat. "Lord Du Mont, this is my step-son, Private James –" He didn't get to the Norrington part, because Chris crashed into James, sending him sprawling forward, and the two siblings laid on the floor in a tangle of limbs and Chris' skirt. Lord Du Mont looked mortified at what just occurred, and when Chris looked up, she was surprised her father didn't have smoke blowing out of his ears.

"And this is my daughter, Christiana." His voice was razor sharp, and his skin had turned a shade of puce. He looked down his nose at his daughter as she and James pulled themselves to their feet. "I suggest you go to your bedchamber and wait for me to have a talk with you, Christiana."

Chris' stomach flipped in anxiety but, almost undetected, her father winked at her. She felt relief spread through her body. He wasn't that angry, he was just putting it on for show. To continue with the ruse, she bowed her head and began to climb the staircase. But as she placed her hand on the railing, it turned into the orange and purple serpent. The snake coiled up Chris' arm faster than a bullet, and then was around her neck, squeezing her, choking her. She gasped for air, fighting against the snake's muscles. Its hideous venom dripping jaws enclosed around her face and she was once again in a fog.

Meanwhile, Giles' doctor had arrived. He had examined Chris and was now feeling her pulse. "You found her like this?" He asked, looking up to Jack.

"Aye. No one slept in the hut with 'er last night, so we don't know 'ow long she's been unconscious." Jack replied. He was leaning lightly up against the wall of the hut near the flap, arms crossed.

"That's unfortunate." So far, the doctor had been putting off the feeling that he felt he was better than everyone else. He had walked into the hut (which now included a pallet, Chris lying upon it), his nose in the air, his whitening hair slicked back, and his hazel eyes looking at Chris as if she were a disgusting creature.

"Can ye help her or not, doc?" Jack asked shortly.

The doctor frowned at the abbreviation. "I do not know what kind of snake could have bitten her. It is very hard to tell without the snake, you know."

Ragetti had been pacing in a corner, Loki on his shoulder. He was worried for his friend, and that worry was rubbing off and compounding on the small monkey. Ragetti looked at his friend and noticed that one of Chris' fists was balled up, and there was dried blood on the fingers. They hadn't noticed her balled fist when they had moved her. He walked towards her prone figure as Jack and the doctor began a shouting match and he knelt beside the pallet, Loki hopping off of his shoulder and onto Chris' legs. Wedging his fingers in between hers, Ragetti gently pried them apart, using quite a bit of effort. He slowly extracted a purple and orange snake whose head had been crushed.

"Alright, you tosser! Let's see what ye've got against –" There was a thudding sound as the doctor hit Jack in the stomach. "Why, ye low-down, no good, dirty piece of –!"

"You asked for it, Sparrow!" The doctor cried. Ragetti turned his head and saw both of the men throwing punches at each other. Jack dodged a punch and grabbed the collar of the doctor's shirt and threw him against the wall. The hut once more shook dangerously. Jack grabbed the man's collar once more, as well as an arm this time, and hurled him through the flap and outside.

Jack poked his head out after him and cried, "AND STAY OUT!" He pulled his head back in and straightened the flap.

"C-Captain?" Ragetti asked hesitantly.

Jack rubbed his hands together a few times before turning to the bumbling pirate. "What is it, Ragetti?"

"I found this." The pirate handed the captain the crushed purple and orange snake. Jack turned it over a few times, noting the crushed vertebrae and crushed head. He pried open the jaws and saw that there was dried blood in its mouth.

"Did ye find this on the floor?" He asked the other pirate firmly.

"Nuh." Ragetti wiped his nose with his sleeve. "It was in 'er hand. It was balled up tight like this." He demonstrated with his own hand.

Jack tapped a temple with his finger while he examined the snake. While the head had been crushed, he didn't think the blood in its mouth was snake blood. "This bit her. I ne'er saw a snake like this."

"What should we do, Cap'n?" Ragetti asked. "Should we suck the venom out?"

"No. I'm guessin' we should search out some o' the natives inland and see if they know how to cure her." Jack looked at the snake and shook his head. "Any venom has already gone through her. I think finding people who have gone through this before is the only thing we can do."

The black began to brighten slowly in Chris' mind. Objects started out fuzzy, but began to clear. Chris was eight and she was lying in her bed, waiting for her mother to come sing her to sleep. Hugging her doll close, she kicked her feet gently, stirring the covers. James was home once more; Lady Thomas was probably seeing to him first. Chris smiled as she remembered the undisturbed day of sliding down stairwells they had enjoyed, for Lord and Lady Thomas had both been out for the day. It turned out, in the previous years, that her father wasn't that angry with fact that she and James raced down the banisters, actually. He and his cousin used to do it all the time when they were younger, and Lord Thomas said he would permit it as long as both of them were careful and weren't caught by their mother. This day, James hadn't noticed his gradually shredding breeches until he received a sliver in his bum, much to the great hilarity of Chris.

There was a slight knocking on her door, which Chris thought odd, for her mother never knocked. "Come in." Chris called. James walked in slowly, almost shyly, and closed the door behind me. "Do you want Mother to sing to you too?" She teased, smiling. James shook his head. "What?" Chris asked. "What's wrong?"

"I just received my orders to ship out in a week." James replied, his shoulders slumping.

"Ship out?" Chris' face fell. "Jamie, you just barely came home!"

"I know." James crossed to sit on the edge of her bed and reached forward for one of her hands. "I'm being sent to Port Royale because of my record. They want me to accompany the new governor and his daughter." He had just recently passed his Lieutenant's exam quite proficiently.

"But… You'll come back, right?" Chris asked. He looked down at her damask bed sheets. "…Right?"

"No, Thimble. I'll be staying there." James said haltingly. The tears immediately came. Chris' mouth opened in a sob and James reached forward, hugging his little sister to him. "Oh Thimble, stop this now! Stop!" He pulled her face away from him so that he could look into it. "It won't be so bad, you'll see. Maybe you can come visit me."

Chris sniffed, trying to comply with her brother's request. "Promise?"

"I'll certainly do my best, Thimble."

When James shipped out a week later, it was what Chris considered the worst day of her life. Very appropriately, it was raining and the sky was dark gray cotton over London. Chris had a passing glance of the new governor and his daughter boarding the ship before Jamie was supposed to board. Her mother and father were there, as well as her three uncles on her mother's side. James saluted his step-father, hugged his mother, and shook the hands of his three uncles. He then came to a stop in front of Chris and bent over. "You know how you have all that black and white damask in your room, Thimble?" He asked lowly. Chris nodded glumly. "Look what I made for you." He handed her a small folded square of cloth. Chris unfurled it and saw that it was a large black and white damask bandana. "Sailors wear this to keep sweat and their hair from their eyes. Whenever you miss me, you can wear this and think of me, alright?" It wasn't much, but it was comfort enough, at least for the moment. Chris threw her arms around James and hugged him as tightly as she could.

"I'll miss you." She whimpered into his ear.

"And I'll miss you Thimble, every day." James pulled his littler sister's arms from around his neck and kissed her on the cheek. "Be brave, Thimble." With a last salute to his family, James picked up his sea bag and boarded the _H.M.S. Dauntless_. He gave a final wave before he disappeared below decks.

That night, as Chris lay in her bed, sleep would not come. She missed James, missed him so terribly that it hurt. This was not as before when he had left; this time had a type of finality to it that Chris did not like in the least. She wanted to go to his room, to think of him and miss him. She decided she would. Chris struggled to get out of her covers, but they seemed to squeeze around her tighter and tighter as she moved until they strangled her. They made an odd hissing noise before Chris fell once more into the black abyss.

Out in the realm of the world, Jack had equipped himself with his sword, two daggers, and his pistol. He checked his flints and scabbard as he stared into the evergreen jungle. It seemed rather ominous and forbidding.

"Ye're going in there, Cap'n?" Rags asked from behind him, where he stood, Loki still on his shoulder.

"Aye." Jack released his sword into his scabbard after a quick check. "Just hope I can find some o' the natives that might feel helpful, and that they speak English." He had skinned the snake and now had the skin hanging from his belt. He thought the skin would be just as good as the corpse, since he had certainly never seen a snake with such markings before.

"Whoah there!" Jack and Ragetti turned and saw Marak and Giles approaching them at a fast walk.

"Jacques," Giles greeted him with a short bow, "Zank you for showing my so called 'doctor' a lesson in manners." He smiled softly. "But I am very sorry zat 'e could not 'elp you."

"Yes, well… I'm goin' into the jungle t' see if any of them natives that show up from time t' time can identify this." He held up the snake skin. "It bit Chris and I think that's why she won't wake."

"Ah." Giles snapped his fingers for a few seconds before announcing, "It is decided, zen! We shall go wiz you."

"What?" Jack asked, startled at the sudden unneeded decidedness.

"Frankly, we're bored Jack. Not much to do here and we'd love some adventure." Marak said, looking into the foliage. "And I'd love a chance to help Whiskey Girl."

"_Oui_." Giles continued. "I hope you do not mind, Jacques, but three men are better zan one, no? And Marak here, 'e can speak several native tongues from Africa. 'e could help."

"Aye." Jack nodded. "Alright then, let's go; we're burnin' daylight." Jack turned to Ragetti. "Rags, keep yer eye on Chris." Ragetti nodded and the other men marched into the jungle, Jack in the lead.

A couple hours later, the sun was beginning to sink. "Stop 'ere!" Jack panted, coming to a stop. While the foliage was very deterring, Jack had been slashing at anything blocking his path with his sword and doing his best to move through the jungle as quickly as possible. If they didn't find a native, Jack hoped the sound would draw them to the pirates. He sat on a rock as Marak and Giles caught their breath. Giles passed a wine bag around as they conversed.

"It feels like we've jogged halfway across this island by now." Marak took a gulp from the wine bag and passed it to Giles.

"Maybe zo. But if zat is true, zen why 'aven't we seen any natives?" The other captain said, taking a drink and passing it on.

Jack accepted the wine bag from Giles and drank deeply before speaking. "We 'ave to continue. Chris could die if we don't figure this out. We need to find some kind o' native."

"What about someone from the Antaimoro tribe?" Marak asked, his eyebrows rising slightly.

"I said any native, what do you think?" Jack gave Marak a quizzical look and paused. "Why do you ask?"

"There's a scout right behind you." Marak nodded his head and then uttered a greeting in a foreign language. Jack turned and saw a man with dark skin wearing a long length of cloth around his waist lurking in the foliage.

It was the winter ball at the Thomas Manor when Chris once more came out of the darkness. During the winter, the Thomas family held a ball for all of their family and friends around Christmastime. Chris was fourteen and as soon as she spiraled out of darkness, she found herself in the arms of her very good childhood friend Adam Lambert. He and she were the same age, and their parents were neighbors. While Lord Thomas was in the House of Lords, Adam's father was a wealthy merchant and had earned his social status and fine things. Adam and Chris had known each other since they were in swaddling clothes, and Adam was usually her dance partner at these balls.

Chris always thought when she was small that she and Adam would grow up to marry each other. It always seemed like it would be such a perfect fit, and she would be able to live no more than a carriage ride away from her family, and she and Adam were such good friends anyway, why not? Adam was also quite handsome with his light blond hair and crystal blue eyes. She smiled up at him beatifically as they waltzed around in time to the music.

"Any word from James?" Adam asked conversationally.

"Yes. He couldn't come home for the winter because he's been promoted to commander, so… He couldn't make it." Chris sighed.

"I'm sure he wanted to come, Chris." Adam soothed. At that point in Chris' life, he was the only one who didn't call her by her full first name, and Chris enjoyed it. "It's just, you know, he has other responsibilities. Stop being so depressing, this is supposed to be a happy night, not a depressing, throw-myself-on-a-sword night." Chris laughed. "There we go, there's my happy Christiana Tree!"

The music to the current dance ended; Adam bowed and Chris spread her skirt in a curtsey. Adam offered his arm and Chris allowed him to escort her back to the main table where Lord and Lady Thomas, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, and Lord Thomas' good friend Lord Malcolm sat. Lord Malcolm had come to Britain for the winter. He was a twenty-something lord who owned a large sugar plantation and he was usually in Jamaica tending to it. His hair was so dark one could not tell for sure if it was black or brown. His eyes were dark as well, and his face was very pointed. He grinned at Chris as she approached the table and the musicians began to tune up for another song. He rose, bowed to Adam and Chris and then asked, "May I have this dance, Miss Christiana?" Lord Malcolm asked.

Chris curtseyed and said, "My pleasure." She did the customary curtsey to Adam, he bowed, and then she curtsied to her new dancing partner and he led her out onto the dance floor. As Chris and Lord Malcolm arranged their hands to the proper places, Lord Malcolm said softly, "You've grown into a fine young woman, Christiana."

The music began and Chris felt the blood rush to her cheeks at the unexpected and very intimate compliment. "Thank you, Lord Malcolm." Her first step was fumbled, but she quickly recovered as the pair began twirling around the ballroom.

"Have you ever wanted to go to Jamaica, Christiana?" Lord Malcolm asked.

"My brother thought that I might be able to visit him in Port Royale some day." Chris replied.

"It is a very beautiful place, and Port Royale is but a jewel of civilization in the crown of lush jungle that is Jamaica." Lord Malcolm said. Chris thought he used too many metaphors in that sentence.

"So I have heard." Chris replied. Soon enough, the music ended, Chris curtsied, and Lord Malcolm bowed. They returned to the table and Chris saw that a type of rolled dessert had been served while she and Lord Malcolm were dancing. She looked down at it, and when she did, the roll suddenly extended, coiled, and turned into the snake. It spat venom into her eyes, and she fell back into darkness.

After hurried words from Marak, discarding their weapons, more words from Marak, the offering of a dagger as a gift and a sign of trust, Jack, Giles, and Marak were led to the village of the Antaimoro tribe, which was situated to the south of the _Black Pearl_'s camp just beyond the tree line. The dwellings were made of red clay. Women gathered around the cooking pit stared as the scout led the strange men into the village and brought them to the largest dwelling. The scout entered the dwelling first, and after a few seconds inside, returned and prodded the three pirates inside. The inside of the dwelling had a fire pit in the middle and logs on which to sit surrounding it. The chief was a large man wearing a colorful length of cloth around his waist. The scout told the chief that Marak spoke their language and after a lengthy conversation, Marak turned to his fellow pirates.

"The chief said he would be glad to help us, but we have to prove our worth." Marak said. The Chief eyed Giles and Jack with a smile on his face.

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Is he going to put us on a bloody quest like a bloomin' knight?"

The corners of Marak's eyes crinkled. "No. He said we must drink a certain draught that has been fermenting for two moons in a swamp."

"Isn't that pointless?" Jack asked, his hands balling into fists. He was getting frustrated. Anymore delay was pointless, why couldn't the natives just give them the cure?

"Jacques, maybe we should just get it over wiz?" Giles suggested. "Ze sooner we do it, ze sooner we can ask zem about a cure for Chris."

"But how do we know this bloke isn't goin' t' poison us?" Jack asked, gesturing to the Chief. The scout that had led them there brandished Jack's own sword threateningly at Jack's raised voice and gesture. "Blimey! Sorry."

Marak shook his head. "Impossible. The Antaimoro tribe is known for their honesty and goodwill. I would have more faith in them than most of the people I've known my whole life."

Jack sighed. "Tell him to bring it on."

The darkness melted away, and Chris gazed out the window of her bedroom, her eyes looking over the gardens and the fields of Thomas Manor. A heavy rain was coming down, trapping Chris inside. It was shortly after her fifteenth birthday, and her lessons had recently decreased. Because of this, she and Adam had been meeting at the spot where the Lambert and Thomas property was separated by a stream and a weeping willow. They met to talk, to swim in the stream, and just to enjoy each other's company. If it weren't for this blasted rain, Chris was sure they would be breaking in the new rope swing Adam had hung from the willow.

There was a knocking on the door and Chris bade whoever knocked to come in. Lord Thomas entered, a smile upon his face. "Ah. I hoped you would be alone." He grabbed the chair from her dressing table and pulled it to sit across from the windowsill Chris sat upon. "I want to talk to you."

"What for, Father?" Chris asked. She was faintly worried that Lord Thomas knew about her and Adam's activities at the weeping willow and had come to tell her how much he disapproved of her swimming in naught but her chemise. She knew it was unladylike and even scandalous, but it was only around Adam…

"Well, you do remember Lord Malcolm, yes?" Lord Thomas asked. Chris' brow wrinkled in surprise.

"Yes…" She stated cautiously.

"I thought you would." Lord Thomas leaned forward, placing his hands to his lips. "What would you think of being married to him?"

Chris' mouth dropped open in surprise. The idea of her marrying a man who was just about a perfect stranger to her – it was almost unfathomable. "I – I…" Words left her for a moment. "I don't know what to say."

Lord Thomas smiled tenderly. "I thought you would be surprised. He was rather taken with you when he was visiting during the winter ball. He asked me that night, but I wanted you to have another birthday before I seriously considered it. What do you think?"

"I… Father, this is so unexpected, and… Adam…" Chris stuttered.

"Adam?" Lord Thomas paused and then his smile decreased just a bit. "Adam is too young, Christiana. And he still needs to pick a trade; he doesn't have the resources to support a wife and family, darling." Chris mouth was set in a line of disappointment. "You would live in Jamaica, you would get to see James very often, and then when you and Lord Malcolm would start your family, you would both return to England. Lord Malcolm doesn't want his children to be raised on a far off island; he wants them to be raised here. He's actually had his eye on Lowe House." Chris knew where Lowe House was, it wasn't much farther than Adam's home. Lord Thomas reached forward and took one of Chris' hands. "I just want you happy, darling. And Lord Malcolm can give you all of the beautiful things you deserve." He squeezed her hand. "What do you think?"

Chris hesitated. "I'll be able to come and see you and Mother whenever I want when we return to England?" She asked shakily.

"Of course, darling."

Chris inhaled deeply. She felt trapped. She felt as though she said no, she would regret it, but if she said yes, she would be yanked from everything she held dear. Was it better to take a step knowing what lay ahead than to leave one's self to the twist of fate? "Alright." She said meekly. Lord Thomas' face broke into a grin and he leaned forward and gave her a hug. But suddenly the hug was too tight, and Lord Thomas' arms were orange and purple, and Chris found herself in darkness yet again.

In the dwelling of the Antaimoro chief, Jack's eyes focused on the bowl of gray liquid that had been heating on the coals of the fire pit. The sun had set while the drink was prepared, and Jack became increasingly anxious as time passed. Chris could have died by now, and there was nothing he could do to speed up the process that could get her cured.

The Chief lifted the bowl and spoke to Marak in Antaimoro. Marak nodded and took the bowl. "We each need to drink one sip. If we refuse, we will be turned away. If we spit it out – We probably won't live to find out what happens to Whiskey Girl. They would consider it a great insult."

"And you said they had goodwill..." Jack muttered as Marak took a sip. His face turned a faint gray, but he swallowed audibly. He coughed slightly, but the Chief thumped him on the back. "_Arahabaina_!" the Chief said in his deep bass voice.

Marak passed the bowl to Giles. He sniffed the lead-colored liquid and shuddered. "_Sacrebleu_!" He crossed himself and then took a sip. He gagged when he swallowed, but the draught stayed down. Some of the liquid slung to his mustache.

"Ye got a little…" Jack motioned to his friend's mouth, and Giles ran his tongue over his mustache, unsure if he was allowed to wipe it off. Giles cringed and cursed at the second taste.

The bowl was finally passed to Jack. He figured he could handle whatever it tasted like; after all, he had eaten Anamaria's cooking once. "Cheers." He raised the bowl to his parted lips and allowed the gray liquid to enter his mouth. The first impulse that came to mind was to vomit. The liquid tasted like rotten fish, spoiled milk, dead bodies, and manure all at once. And the fact that Jack knew what the latter two tasted like made him want to vomit all the more. It burned his tongue and the scent made his eyes water and his nose run. He closed his lips and set the bowl down, his cheeks puffed out like a blowfish. He wanted to do nothing but spew the vile drink out, but he thought of Chris. He thought of her smile, her jokes (usually on him), and how she had been thrown through a wall trying to save him from a succubus. He'd return her the favor. Struggling, he swallowed the drink. He swallowed a few more times, for it felt as though it coated the inside of his throat. The aftertaste was, if possible, even worse. He cleared his throat and smiled at the Chief. "Tasty."

Chris let out a long sigh as she looked out of the porthole of the cabin that would be her home until she arrived in Jamaica. Weeks ago she had said goodbye to her mother and father at the London docks and set sail on the merchant vessel the _Eliza May_ bound for Port Royale. When Chris told Adam that she was to be married, their friendship had broken and they drifted apart. Chris dared to think that Adam had also believed they would marry when they grew up, but she would never know. The goodbye between Chris and her parents wasn't as tearful as she thought, but after the first day at sea, she missed them something terrible. Most of the voyage had been spent in her cabin, missing England, missing her family, and missing Adam. It was a small consolation that when Chris arrived in Port Royale she would be able to spend a few days with her brother before she and Lord Malcolm would be married and she would go to her new home at his sugar plantation.

She drummed her fingers on the sill of the porthole and breathed in deeply. She didn't know that the crossing would be so boring. Chris had brought a couple of books, but she had long since read them. And, since she was the only female on board, the captain preferred that she stayed in her cabin at all times except dinner, at which time she would dine with the captain and his officers and then return to her cabin to lock the door and go to bed. She looked at the small bed with the mismatched sheets and sighed. She missed home.

From far away, she heard a popping noise. She vaguely wondered if maybe someone had opened up a bottle of wine or champagne in the cabin across from hers, which housed the officers. Suddenly she heard a great crunching noise and shouts from above as the ship shook. Chris stood from her chair and crossed to the door. She opened it and peeked to the stairwell, on which men were suddenly running up and down. "What's going on?" She asked.

Only one sailor heard her, or chose not to ignore her. "Best stay in your cabin, missy!" He said before continuing below. Chris pulled herself back into her cabin and closed the door. What could possibly have happened? She heard another pop, followed by a closer crunching noise and a more severe tremor ran through the ship. They… they couldn't be under attack, could they? Her legs suddenly turned to pudding and she stumbled to her bed. Yes, they had just entered the Caribbean Sea, and yes she had heard tales of the pirates of the Caribbean, but… This couldn't be happening – this couldn't be happening to her!

There was another pop and Chris felt the ship shake from impact. She felt sick with fear, her stomach was boiling, and she thought she might faint. What if a cannon ball came through her cabin wall? She fell to the floor and crawled underneath her bed. She suddenly noticed how hard she was breathing and how loud it was. She tried to calm herself. Surely, _surely_ whoever was attacking wouldn't take the _Eliza May_. Surely, in a few moments, everything would be fine and someone would come to the cabin and tell Chris it was a close shave, but everything was going to be fine…

When the popping no longer came, Chris convinced herself that what she thought would happen did happen. It was only a matter of moments before the captain would come and assure her that everything was alright, everything was going to be alright. She started to scoot from under the bed, her legs first. If the captain came, she certainly didn't want to still be underneath the bed, did she? As Chris was just about halfway out from underneath the bed her door opened. _Well, this is embarrassing_, Chris thought, but then someone grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her from under the bed so fast she hit her head on the frame. She was flipped over, and through the spots before her eyes, she saw a man who had nary a hair on his head and dark, cold eyes like gaping well mouths. He grinned at her.

"Look at this bit of strumpet!" He crowed to a younger man who was at the door. He grabbed Chris about the waist and picked her up. "What do you think, Rob, captain's 'ore?"

"I beg your pardon!" Chris found her voice and then shoved her hands against the man's chest in an effort to free herself from his grasp. He _should not_ be touching her in such a way. He did not even flinch at her shove.

"Oh, a thousand pardons my lady." The man said sarcastically and then threw her backwards over his shoulder, his hands resting firmly on her rump.

"_**Get your hands off me**_!" Chris cried, struggling.

"I'd close that pretty mouth of yours if you don't want it smashed!" The man yelled. He turned his attention back to the young man at the door. "Captain's going to want to see her!" With that, Chris was unceremoniously carried from her cabin up to the deck. From the bald man's shoulders, Chris saw that a green-painted ship with the name _Branwyn_ written on it in gold had come up broadside to the _Eliza May_ and was secured to the merchant ship by ropes with what looked like large fishhooks at the end, and planks were thrown across. The sailors of the _Eliza May_ had either joined with this ship or decided to be put off with the captain. Those leaving with the captain were just finishing boarding the jolly boat under the command of a tall man with a weathered face, freckles, and flaming red hair. He was also wearing a brilliant emerald jacket and had a blue sash tied about his waist.

"Captain!" The bald man hollered. The man with red hair turned and Chris was unceremoniously dumped at his feet in a bundle. She hurriedly pulled her skirt down so that none of her limbs would be exposed as the man continued. "Found her across from the officer's cabin, hiding under a bed."

The red haired captain looked down at her and turned to the captain in the jolly boat. "Who's this?" He asked. He had an Irish lilt to his voice.

"She's – She's – She's nobody." The captain stuttered.

"His 'ore, probably." The bald man said.

"Flynn, wotch your tongue 'round a lady, regardless of 'er profession." The captain reprimanded. The bald man named Flynn knuckled his brown in respect. The captain crouched down so that he would be face to face with Chris. "What is your name?"

Chris started quivering with fear. Were these men pirates? What were they going to do with her? "My name is Christiana Thomas." She said.

"Christiana." He smiled kindly. "What are you doin' on this ship?" The captain asked.

"She's heading for Jamaica and a rich husband!" All heads turned to the captain of the _Eliza May_. "And her father's a member of parliament! If you took her hostage and left my men and me our ship, you could get much more than what the _Eliza May_ is worth for her ransom!" He stared expectantly at the red haired captain.

"Torin, he's probably lyin'! Anyone can play a – a mistress off as anything else!" Flynn said.

The captain shot a look at Flynn. "That is **Captain** Malloy, Flynn. You seem very forgetful t'day of the chain of command and manners."

"Apologies." Flynn said none too sincerely.

Torin the captain turned back to the young woman on his deck and asked, "Is what the former captain said true, Christiana?"

"My father is a member of parliament, yes. And my future husband does own a sugar plantation." Chris said slowly. The captain stood and crossed to the jolly boat.

"We will leave you your ship but take your cargo and your guns." Torin informed the _Eliza May_'s captain. The captain opened his mouth to object, but Torin silenced him. "You should be grateful I'm leaving you with that, **captain**. Pirates usually aren't lenient, and under diff'rent circumstances, I would not be as lenient with a gentleman who willin'ly compromises the safety of his passenger to save himself some 'eartache." The captain's mouth snapped shut. "So be lucky that I am not taking her _and_ your ship, and I suggest that you attend to chivalry in the future, no matter what the financial cost."

Torin turned back to Christiana and offered his arm to her. She took it and stood shakily. "Branwynians! We 'ave a passenger, Miss Christiana Thomas. We shall be keepin' 'er until her passage is paid fer." Chris felt weak at the knees. She was going to be held hostage? She swallowed hard and looked down to the deck as Torin continued speaking. "Since she is a passenger, not a single one of you will touch her in any manner whatsoever, do you hear me?" Torin looked at all of his men. "If I learn that a single one of you has laid the tip of a finger 'pon her, being keelhauled for punishment will be the _least _of your worries. Do you understand?" There were murmurs of assent. "Division one, keep guard on the _Eliza May_'s men, the rest of you get the cargo onto the _Branwyn_! Robert, come 'ere lad." The young man who had entered Chris' cabin with Flynn walked forward. "See Miss Thomas to a clean cabin that can be locked from the outside, and bring me the key, aye?"

"Yes, sir." Robert knuckled his brow to Torin and Chris' arm was gently handed to the young man with brown hair and grass colored eyes. He smiled kindly at her, but his smile did not calm her nerves.

"The locked cabin is for your safety, miss." Torin said to Chris. "I promise that as long as you're on my ship, no harm will come to ye. It's just business is all." With that, Torin turned away and Chris was hauled, not down into the belly of the _Branwyn_, but into the smothering darkness once more.

With a bow of his head to the Chief, Marak turned to Jack and said, "He said that you can show him the snake skin now." The Chief, after seeing the three men pass their tests with flying colors, had called several other men into the dwelling, including the medicine man. The three pirates found their selves uncomfortably sandwiched between half naked men on the logs around the fire.

"Ye told 'im what happened, right?" Jack asked, pulling the snake skin from his belt slowly. "Chris being awake but not awake and everything?"

"Of course. He said he will help you if he can." Marak answered.

Jack sighed heavily. "Aye." He took the snake skin from his waist and handed it to the Chief. "Could make a nice belt if it were longer." The Chief held it before him so all could see the coloring of the scales.

The Antaimoro men gasped. One said something in their language, another turned ashen, and the medicine man murmured ominously, "_**Manampoka**_!"

"Ask him what that is!" Jack snapped. Their alarm was not the least bit comforting to him.

Marak spoke in the language for a few minutes before speaking in English. "It's the name of the snake. It means 'surprise' because it is almost never detected until it bites. The venom in its bite makes the person who received it relive some of their lives in their minds, in a sort of coma until they die from a toxin in the venom." He paused. "They also included that the death is slow and painful, but happens soon after they are bitten; anywhere from one to three days."

Chris could be dead... But Jack wouldn't give up. He couldn't give up. "Ask them what the cure is!" Jack commanded. Marak spoke quickly this time, and the medicine man made a gesture and stood to leave.

"He said follow him." Marak informed them. The three men stumbled after the medicine man in the pale moonlight once they left the dwelling. The medicine man grabbed several flaming sticks from a nearby fire pit and handed one to each of the pirates before continuing. They followed him through the quiet village out into the trees, to the coast, and into a seaside cave. It was dark and dank inside and smelled of mildew. The medicine man spoke to Marak, and Marak grimaced. "He said that you need one of the _Manampoka_. Alive. And they come from in there."

"Alright. I'll need my sword before I go inside." Jack said, taking off his jacket. Marak translated, and the medicine man shook his head. He plucked a rock from the mouth of the cave and handed it to Jack. "You've got to be joking, mate." Jack said. After translation, the medicine man shook his head. "Well, bollocks." Jack breathed in and then turned to Giles and Marak. "If I don't make it back out, which is pretty bloody likely since I only have a bleeding rock… please try and do what I could not."

"We will, Jacques. We will." Giles said. He put a hand on Jack's shoulder and squeezed. Jack nodded to Giles and Marak, made a mock bow to the medicine man before heading inside the mouth of the cave.

The cave was moist inside and the rock slick. Jack had to walk slower than he would have preferred, for he didn't want to slip and risk his torch-light extinguishing and him dying of head trauma, and in doing so sentencing Chris to death. If she wasn't dead already, that was… "Shut it, tosser." Jack murmured to himself. The cave had no other openings or corridors elsewhere, so he followed the cavern back for several minutes, seeing nothing. He was just about ready to begin despairing when he suddenly saw several stalactites ahead and the cavern opening up like a gaping jaw. He walked forward to the stalactites that seemed to be the teeth of giants, and upon leaning into what could be considered the gaping maw of the cavern, he raised his torch. Below him, in a pit by that must have once been a small underground lake, he saw a seething mass of the purple and orange snakes.

"Holy –!" He backed away from the opening, hearing several hisses as he did. Turning his head, he saw purple and orange snakes hanging from the stalactites and crawling up stalagmites. Had he walked into a trap… set by snakes? What? _Jack, don't lose it now!_ The pirate captain berated himself. He backed up slowly, towards the stalactite rimmed mouth, but a stalactite serpent lunged at him. The hand that held the rock swooped upwards and bashed the snake so hard that blood sprayed the wall. The limp corpse of the snake released the stalactite and slipped to the cavern floor.

Jack's breathing became erratic as several snakes slithered out of the darkness to the corpse. They began to rip the dead body apart, devouring its flesh in gulps. Jack realized that the snakes were not there for him, but to devour their fallen comrade. He could use that to his advantage. Slowly, gradually, and inch by inch, he reached down and grabbed a snake just behind its head. He stood as soon as his fingers were tight about the serpent so that his hand would not be an easy target for the other snakes. Jack let out a slow breath, and held the snake tight, circling around until he was clear of the eating snakes. And then he ran.

Chris fell from the void of darkness and landed hard on the wooden deck of the pirate ship. She was dazed for a bit, wondering why she had fallen, before she received a sharp kick in her side. She winced and curled her legs against her chest. Everything came rushing back to her as another kick landed in her back. Even though the captain had commanded that no one was to touch Chris, that did not keep her safe at all times. The man Flynn seemed to have a personal vendetta against her, and when the captain had gone to bed for the night and Flynn and his cronies were on watch, they would pick the lock to Chris' cabin and make her do chores like cleaning the head (which she learned very quickly was the name for the ship's lavatory), wash their clothes, mend their clothes, and swab the decks. When she learned that she wasn't going to be deprived of her maidenhood, she started being daring and trying to be brave. Tonight she had pushed it, though.

Flynn had hauled her out and threw her upon the deck. "Swab the deck before I swab yours." He said, grinning widely.

Chris grabbed the Bible-sized stone fittingly named the holystone. She had overheard her share of maritime insults on her weeks onboard the _Eliza May_, and she had been saving them up for a moment such as this. She was no longer going to take any of Flynn's guff. She looked up at him and said, "I doubt that a landlubber like you could ever have the vim to even seriously consider swabbing my deck, you scurvy degenerate!" Chris didn't even get the pleasure of seeing his reaction before the first fist landed against her cheek.

"Degenerate landlubber?" Flynn growled. "We'll see about that!" It was then that the beating began and it now ended as he spat upon her. "Tramp! Without what falls between your legs, you're useless!" He turned to walk away.

Chris had enough. She was tired of being bullied and alarmed and abused. She was tired of people telling her what to do. She uncurled herself and grabbed the bucket full of water that she was supposed to be swabbing the deck with. She stood, ran up behind Flynn, and dumped the water over his head before jamming the bucket onto his brutish skull. "Useless, am I?" She cried. Jumping on his back, Chris wrapped one of her arms around Flynn's' throat and rapped her knuckles on the bucket with her free arm.

The noise alerted Flynn's cronies and they thudded to the deck as Flynn tried to get the adolescent girl off his back. As soon as he managed to throw Chris off and pull the bucket off of his skull, he rounded on her. "You little b–!" The captain's cabin opened, and a roused Torin Malloy stood framed by the light from the inside. What would have happened next no one would ever know, because there was a loud explosion, and then Flynn caught a cannonball with his stomach. Chris watched in horror as Flynn was almost ripped in half by the ball and landed on the deck, his entrails and blood spilling out.

"To arms!" Torin yelled without a second thought. Chris, not sure of what to do, stood up just to be shoved back down. "Not a good idea, lassie!" The captain said before mounting the stairs to the wheel. Chris scrambled up next to a bulkhead, which was as good cover as anything as pirates flooded the decks and the rigging. She peeked over the sides of the ship and in the darkness of night she saw the white sails of another ship that had snuck up on them while attention had been focused on her and Flynn.

"Fire!" Came the call from below, and the _Branwyn_ jolted as all of her starboard guns went off, peppering the other ship. Chris didn't know what to do, and so she watched as both ships exchanged fire as they pulled up broadside along each other. The ropes with the fishhooks, or grappling hooks as Chris would come to know them, were thrown between the two ships and sailors from the other ship swung across and landed with thumps. It was then that Chris found that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time as Spanish sailors from the other ship and the sailors of the _Branwyn_ began to engage in combat.

The air became thick with explosions and screams. Chris watched, unnoticed, as sailors fell from sword slashes and the firing of pistols. _Christiana_, _you need to defend yourself! _She heard James' voice in her head, which was odd. It would be the kind of thing he would say. _If you don't, you'll either die or be treated even more poorly! Seize the day and fight your way to freedom! _She had no idea how she could gain freedom, but she began scrambling about the bodies of the fallen sailors for a weapon.

Chris finally found a weapon. She pulled it from the dead body of a former _Eliza May_ sailor who had been kind to her before the pirates arrived. As soon as she pulled the sword from the sailor, a Spaniard took notice of her and charged at her. Chris parried his thrust and spent the next fifteen minutes sword fighting for the first time of her life. Her sword fighting consisted of her clumsily deflecting the Spaniard's thrusts and slashes, afraid every second that she would make the wrong move and find herself bleeding and headed for death. Her forehead was damp with sweat and her stomach was wrenched in fear when she finally deflected a slash and thrust her blade into the man's abdomen. He groaned and looked down at his stomach and then up at Chris. He said something in Spanish, pulled himself deeper onto the sword, and reached for Chris' face. She shrieked in terror and pulled the sword from his gut. He fell to the deck with a groan and was still.

Chris' breathing was heavy. She had just killed a man! She stood there for a few seconds feeling fuzzy with shock before she heard another groan, louder. Across the deck, she spied Torin, wounded at the hip, on his knees, and about to be finished off by the Spanish captain. Chris had to do something. Torin had done what he could to protect her. She needed to return the favor and, even if she didn't succeed, she probably wouldn't have to worry about whether or not she would be abused or mistreated anymore.

She leaped over the fallen bodies of Spaniards and pirates until she skidded in between the Spaniard captain and Torin. "Leave him alone!" Chris commanded. The Spaniard captain's mouth dropped open in surprise, and then he burst out laughing raucously.

"A _senorita_ telling me to leave heem alone!" He laughed even louder, almost unable to stand.

"Christiana, what the bloody 'ell are you doing?" Torin asked behind her.

Chris brandished her bloody blade and slashed at the Spaniard's arm, leaving a bloody cut behind. "Leave him." She said with more bravery than she felt.

The Spaniard's laughter stopped and he slashed out, cutting Chris across the left shoulder. She could feel as the blade bit into her flesh and sliced through it. Never had she felt such acute and intense pain before. She yelped and the Spaniard smiled with pleasure before slashing once more. She blocked his blow and stepped backwards. As he slashed again, Chris saw that she had succeeded. His attention was no longer on Torin. The Spaniard continued to slash at her, and she retreated until he had her cornered between the stairs leading up to the wheel and the doorway of the captain's cabin.

The Spaniard laughed, realizing that he was going to win, as if he had doubts before. "Prepare to be _muerto, senorita_." He grinned and raised his sword. Chris had never before thought of how she would die, but she certainly had never pictured her death at the hands of a Spanish captain while aboard a pirate ship as a hostage. She prepared to feel his sword enter her guts when across the deck she saw that Torin had pulled himself to his feet and had crept towards the dueling girl and Spaniard. He pulled his left shoe from his foot and launched it at the back of the Spaniard's head just as his sword started to move. The shoe connected when the sword was less than six inches from Chris' gut. The Spaniard paused for just a second. It was all Chris needed.

Her blade flashed. The Spaniard captain dropped his blade, his hands going to his throat as blood squirted from the cut at his Adam's apple. He made choking noises before he sank to the deck face first, blood pooling underneath him. Chris dropped her sword and looked up at Torin. They locked eyes for but a moment before Chris promptly fainted in relief.

Jack shook the medicine man's hand frantically. "Thank ye, thank ye much!" He repeated over and over, trying to do his best to convey that he and the other two pirates should be going. The medicine man seemed to think otherwise, continually asking Marak to ask Jack what it was like inside the cave with all the snakes. The one that Jack had captured had been placed in a wooden box that had been tied shut with a hemp-like rope, and then attached to another length of rope that could be used as a strap. Jack slung the strap over his shoulder and finally released the medicine man's hand. "Tell him thanks, but we have got to hurry. It might be too late." Jack said to Marak.

"_Oui_, Jacques. Let us pray we are not." Giles said, tightening his belt. They had received their weapons back, and Giles and Jack finished securing their swords as Marak bade the Antaimoro farewell. Since the Antaimoro village was just down the beach from the _Black Pearl_'s camp (Jack and the other two had been going in circles the hours before), the three had a straight shot back to the camp and a much shorter journey. The medicine man finally bowed his farewell, and the three pirates took off.

The three trudged up the beach as fast as they could, which became difficult when the sand seemed determined to swallow their feet every step of the way. They found that they made better time if they walked briskly and did not try to run. By and by, Marak grabbed the wooden box on Jack's back and asked, "How's our friend doing?" He shook the box and a loud hissing noise issued from it.

"Great Marak, shake it harder so ye'll piss 'im off good." Jack grumbled. Marak and Giles laughed, but it was tense laughter. Jack was not the only one worried about whether or not his quartermaster was alive. Hardly another word was said as they continued up the beach, their muscles and feet aching from the day's exertion. Slowly, the smell of smoke became more and more evident. Finally, they saw the faint glimmer of fires on the beach. As they approached the camp of the _Black Pearl_, they picked up their pace.

"Jacques, what did ze medicine man zay was ze cure?" Giles asked as they were spotted and pirates began flocking to them. Apparently, what had happened to Chris had been circulated around the camp in their absence.

"Chris is gonna be peeved at me when she wakes up." Jack said. _If she wakes – Shut it, you! _ "I uh – I have to make her drink its blood."

"How can zat 'appen eef she is unconscious?" Giles asked.

"I have no idea." Jack spotted Ragetti, Loki still on his shoulder, coming out of Chris' hut. "Rags, how is she?"

Darkness faded away for what Chris felt would be the last time, and she was witnessing the port of Tortuga for the first time in her life. Her skin was peeling from sunburn, and her clothes smelled of the sea air. Behind her at the bow of the _Branwyn_ were Torin and Robert. After Chris had saved his life, Torin had offered to let her off at any port she wanted in gratitude. Flynn's mates had been rounded up and punished after it came to light that they had been violating the captain's orders (after the battle calmed, Torin wanted to know just how the Hell Chris had gotten out of her cabin and the real reason came tumbling out) and they had been let off in a jolly boat with the Spanish sailors. Torin didn't have any room for disloyalty on his ship.

Instead of asking to be taken to Port Royale, Chris had a different idea. The idea of being a pirate and having the freedom to do as she pleased appealed to her much more than being married to a stranger. So she put her idea before Torin for approval, and he asked his crew. Between the time of the Spanish attack and the vote, Chris had worked her way into the friendly affections of the Branwynians by mending and washing their clothes, helping David the cook with some of the grub, and giving a kind word or reading to those who had been wounded. It wasn't only Chris' kindness that brought this about, but the urgings of the young man Robert, who seemed to be quite taken with the young woman. She made sure that he knew she had no intentions to become romantically inclined towards anyone in the near future, and he acted mortally offended that she even thought he might have lustful inclinations. She just smiled and shook her head, and he broke into a grin as well.

After all of this, the self-dubbed Branwynians voted her into the crew and she was immediately put to work. She never knew that the human body could be pushed so hard without breaking. Her first week included her sustaining rope burn, receiving a blow to the head when she didn't duck fast enough during the replacement of damaged timbers, and she burned her elbow when she stood too close to the flint while learning how to load and fire cannon. Despite this, she kept on plugging ahead and quickly learned her duties and what was expected of her. As her maritime education progressed, her appearance changed. She had originally tried to perform her duties wearing her dress. That didn't work. So she settled on long trousers and a high collared man's shirt with sleeves that went to her thumbs, and her shoes. Over time, she shed the shoes for they hindered her efforts to climb rigging and balance on the yardarms. She had originally pinned her hair up, which was very functional for her chores, but she slowly became lazy and let it fly freely about her, only secured on occasion by the black and white damask bandana James had given her.

After the _Branwyn_ docked and the anchor and gangplank lowered, straws were drawn to determine who would stay aboard and watch the ship while the others enjoyed their shore leave. Chris was not one of the unlucky, and neither was Robert. Torin joined the young man and woman as they disembarked. "So where shall we be goin', lads?" She asked, throwing an arm around each of them. Since it was a foreign port and she was an adolescent female, she thought it best to stay close to them.

Torin apparently thought the same. "T' a tavern, Chris." He replied. "If we're in luck, I've got someone I'd like ye t' meet." Torin led Robert and Chris through the port. Chris' head swiveled around like a bird's as she drank in the very unorthodox sights and sounds of Tortuga. She saw half-naked women being chased, what might be a man of the cloth being strung up by the hands and his feet tickled with feathers, and several men practicing their shooting on poor, defenseless windows. "Ah, here we are." Torin nodded to the sign of the Faithful Bride tavern.

Torin was the first through the doors of the Faithful Bride, Robert and Chris following behind closely. Chris had never before been inside any establishment that sold only alcohol, and so she observed the crowded tables, the man and woman behind the bar, and the cups of drink with glittering eyes. Torin observed the crowd and then said, "Stay close, Chris." He navigated around the tables before coming to a stop before a table near the back. A man with black dreadlocked hair holding a large mug sat at the table. He looked up as Torin said, "Good to see ye, _**Grá**_!" He said, offering his hand. The man shook it, and Chris now saw that many trinkets and items hung from the man's hair, which was only held back by a scrap of red bandana.

"Torin Malloy! Barkeep, rum over here!" The man bellowed to the man behind the bar. He nodded and the dreadlocked man said, "Sit, Malloy, sit!" Chris, Torin, and Robert pulled out their chairs and sat. "I heard that ye had some trouble with the Spanish a month or so ago."

"That I did." Torin grinned. "And it is only by an unloikely miracle that I'm here at all. I was saved by an angel." Torin turned and gestured to Chris. "Chris, this is Captain Jack Sparrow. Jack, this is Christiana Thomas, my new ship's boy."

Chris saw a glow of gold when Jack smiled at her by way of greeting. "Evenin', Chris." He held out his hand. Chris took it and Jack shook firmly before releasing her much smaller hand. "So, ye saved Torin's life, eh?"

"Aye." Chris felt a blush rise in her cheek. "I merely wanted to repay a kindness he gave me."

"Too bad." Jack sighed. "Would have been a cleaner world without him." Torin punched Jack on the shoulder in a friendly way, and the dreadlocked captain grinned. At that moment, the barkeep arrived with four new cups of rum. Jack leaned in conspiratorially. "Now, Chris, have you ever tried rum?" He asked, his tone dead serious.

"No." She responded, her eyes darting to the amber liquid in the cups.

Jack grinned and took a cup from the barkeep, sliding it to Chris. "That's something we must remedy, isn't it?"

But that was all Chris knew. Everything suddenly darkened around her and her breath caught in her throat. She could hear blood pounding in her ears, and she could not inhale. What was happening?

Jack dashed into the hut with Ragetti, Loki, Giles, and Marak in tow. In Ragetti's absence, her skin had turned as white as wig powder. She was now convulsing and rigid, her eyes darting back and forth in her skull. Strangled cries issued from her throat.

"She was fine when I left!" Ragetti stuttered. Loki shrieked in alarm.

Jack darted forward, falling on his knees next to her pallet. He reached forward and felt her cheek, which was cold and clammy. He put his ear over her mouth and heard no intake of breath. "Bollocks!" He wedged his fingers in between her lips and pried her mouth open, which was easier said than done. Her jaws were clenched shut so tightly Jack had to convince himself not to use his sword to open them for him. Once he had parted her teeth, he looked to Ragetti, Marak, and Giles he ordered, "Keep her mouth open while I get the bloody snake!" The three men dashed forward and knelt around the pallet. Strategically placing their fingers, they held her mouth open, two holding her lower jaw, and the other holding her head. Loki was raising Hell, screeching and hooting as loud as he could.

Jack, without hesitating, untied the rope securing the wooden box and reached in regardless of whether or not the snake would bite him. He snatched it by the midsection and pulled it out before him. It hissed wickedly, and Ragetti took one look at it and promptly fainted. Loki shrieked and leaped to the ground right before Ragetti landed on the shoulder he had been sitting on. Jack scooted his hand up to hold it by the head and with the other hand he pulled his sword from the scabbard just enough to reveal the blade. With a clean swipe, he beheaded the snake. The head fell to the floor of the hut, the mouth still open in its silenced hiss. Crimson blood spouted from the still writhing body.

Jack stemmed the flow of the blood with his thumb and positioned the headless snake over Chris' open mouth. He moved his thumb and droplets of blood spurted into Chris' gaping mouth. Red-black blood filled her chops and Jack rubbed her throat so that she would swallow. All of the sudden, there was a gurgling noise. Jack tossed the now bloodless snake to the side as Chris coughed, causing blood to flow over her lips. Giles and Marak let go of her jaw and her lips smacked shut. She swallowed and coughed again, a spray of bloody saliva issuing from her mouth. Her blue eyes opened wide and panicky. She looked terrifying with her lips scarlet, white skin, her darting eyes, and her teeth red from the blood.

"Oh bloody Hell! – What..." She coughed again and hacked, her hands rising to her lips. "What the bloody Hell? Oh lord…"

Loki gave an ecstatic shriek and jumped from the ground onto his master. He buried his face into her chest ecstatically. Jack shoved the monkey aside and threw his arms around Chris, hugging her tightly. Loki let out what could only be described as a war cry and launched himself up Jack's back and into his hair. Jack released his quartermaster and fell backward with a cry, trying to get the small ape off of his head. Chris looked around, her eyes plainly showing her increasing confusion.

"God, Chris, we thought you were a goner!" Marak exclaimed, wiping the saliva from her mouth on his pants. Everyone in the hut was then distracted as Loki shrieked in victory and returned to his master, a length of black hair in his paws. Jack sat up with a groan, clutching his head in both hands.

Chris brow furrowed and she still said nothing as she took in her surroundings. She was half expecting to sink back into darkness once more, but then she spotted the snake carcass. "This had to do with the dirty snake, didn't it?" She asked. She smacked her lips. Why did she have a metallic zing in her mouth?

Jack nodded and crept closer to her. Loki brandished the black hair warningly. Jack ignored him and continued. "One of 'em bit you, and I… er, _we_ were scared Chris. You wouldn't wake up. It was like ye were dead."

Chris didn't speak as all of the emotions of the memories she had lived again flooded her senses. Some of them she had kept buried inside for years. She had to face it; coming from a background like she did wasn't very becoming for a pirate. She finally breathed in deeply and stroked Loki's head tenderly as she looked around at Jack, Giles, and Marak. She also observed the unconscious Ragetti and smiled softly. "You three, then – You must have saved me." She deduced.

"_Oui_."

"Sure did."

"Aye."

Chris let out a breath. She had such good friends, such good, true friends. "I don't know how I can ever repay you." She said, tears suddenly filling her eyes. She wiped them away with the hand that wasn't petting Loki. God, she was acting like a woman!

"Well for one thing, ye can stop crying, lord!" Jack said, standing, "And come have a drink with us."

"I don't know if she should, Jack, she just dodged a pretty big bullet there." Marak said warningly, placing a protective hand on Chris' shoulders.

"Marak, we're pirates. Since when do we ever play things safe?" Jack asked.

Giles, Marak, Chris, and Loki looked at each other. "He has a point." Giles shrugged.

Chris sighed and, with bracing holds from Giles and Marak, pulled herself to her feet. "Ye had me at drink, captain."

Jack grinned. "There's my Chris."

oOo

Deep inside the black and winding mazes  
I'm running from my ghouls,  
My own thoughts are replaced by  
The hidden faces deep from my soul.  
Longing to see time rolling by  
To case the thoughts of regret  
My bad conscience tears me apart,  
How will I ever forget

Dark recollections  
Gnaw my inside  
I've tried to run  
And I've tried to hide

Reaching the barrow  
Of my memories  
To lay the final stone upon the grave  
Searching inner kingdoms

For control  
To put the lid of oblivion  
Upon the grave of guilt

As I look into the mirror  
I do not see my face  
Two lying hollow eyes is staring back  
With the look of shame and disgrace  
My past is darkening my future  
As my present dies  
Every morning is a step towards  
The edge of my soul's demise

Yesterday's demons  
Is like a plague to my mind  
That never seems to cure  
Imprisoning me to  
What I left behind  
Letting my conscience  
Unchain no more


	7. A Very Madagascar Christmas !

**Chapter Seven  
A Very Madagascar Christmas**

Chris liked Christmas. Truly, she did. There was something magical about the holiday and the month preceding the day of the Savior's birth that just made her fill up with joy and rapture. She didn't know exactly what it was. However, Chris disliked Christmas on Madagascar for several reasons. For one thing, Jack insisted on trying to find a tree that somewhat resembled a pine tree on the tropical island (he also insisted everyone help decorate it, which once ended in an almost fatal wound for Gibbs and the absence of Jack's eyebrows for several months). For another, Jack had them hold a sort of Midnight Mass at which almost everyone had lost all sense of sobriety, and last but certainly not least, Chris had to somehow find suitable presents for her captain and fellow crewmembers. Normally she wouldn't complain, but on Madagascar this entailed tramping to other pirate camps all day and trading away some of her most high quality possessions for meager gifts. As a point in fact, the year before she almost had the clothes taken off her back in order to get Jack's gift: a new leather scabbard.

This year she was doing her best to try to make the Madagascar Christmas a more pleasant and less strenuous affair. She was hiding in the tree line as Jack called out for "volunteers" to find this year's Christmas tree. In normal Jack fashion, he of course waited until after noon on Christmas Eve to call for volunteers. None of the people who would actually search for the tree would have volunteered. It was a tedious task, and was meant to be avoided. Those finding the tree would be selected by their captain and, of course, would obey his orders. Chris peeked around the trunk of the tree she was hiding against just as Jack's voice rang out.

He looked at those assembled around the main fire pit upon the beach. "Chris? Chris!" He threw his hands up in the air. "Where's Chris?"

Chris darted back behind the tree, taking care not to jostle her wrist. She waited with baited breath until she heard Jack assigning certain people to certain directions and then she heard the crowd disperse. Letting out a long breath, she made sure the coast was clear before retrieving her bag of trinkets that she had hidden the night before. It hid beneath the branches of a small shrubbery, and as Chris hoisted it over her shoulder, it made tinkling sounds.

She could not afford to get a gift for every single crewmate but had instead made up several dozen handkerchiefs with _The Black Pearl_ embroidered in one of the corners. While those were done, she still had to obtain gifts for Ragetti, Pintel, Athos, Cotton, Anamaria, Gibbs, Marty, Giles, Marak, and of course, Jack. She made sure once more that no one had noticed her with a cursory glance over the camp. Once assured, Chris whistled and Loki dropped down from the tree she had hid behind and onto her shoulder. "That's a good boy." She said, scratching his chin. "Shall we?" With that, Chris and Loki headed up the beach where other pirate camps waited.

She soon found that one of the pirates at the next camp over had set up a sort of shop inside an ill-constructed shack. Inside the single room and hund behind the table that served as a counter were two shelves with a collection of various weapons, knick-knacks, and even a few water-stained books. Loki busied himself by inspecting the table legs while Chris bartered. The man pointed out what he wanted for the current transaction. "That bit o' gold and that trinket, and ye got yerself a deal."

"Done." Chris put a golden locket and an hourglass on the table, which the man immediately swiped up and placed on his shelf. He handed her the holster she had bartered for. Gibbs never really had too much of a proper holster, and Chris thought the _Pearl_'s first mate should at least have a decent place for his pistol to rest. She had already procured a whetstone for Athos, some boots for Pintel, scissors for Cotton to trim his beard with, Giles a crystal goblet, Marak a book, and now surveyed a small pistol. It would be perfect for Anamaria to hide up her sleeve. That was Anamaria's style, after all. "What for the pistol?" She didn't really notice that Loki had left her field of vision.

"That's quite a hot commodity around here, girl. Came to me broken, I repaired it myself. It's worth quite a bit more than what you've already bartered for."

"I did not ask for its history, I asked what ye want for it." Chris said, her head cocked slightly to the side.

The old man smiled, showing blackened stumps of teeth. "Well, angel-face." He rested a hand on her uninjured arm. "Maybe if ye did me a few...'virile' favors, I could give ye the pistol."

Chris pulled her arm from the man's grasp, her first thought was to punch him for his cheek. She restrained herself. "Not on yer life. Good day." She turned to leave and received a sharp smack on her behind. She whirled around instantly, eyes blazing in rage, and landed a blow right on his skull.

The man staggered and immediately cursed her. "Get out, ye bitch!"

"Ye don't have to tell me twice, you wastrel!" Chris turned on her heel without another thought and left the shack. She went a few paces and then remembered that Loki was still in inside. She put her fingers to her lips and let out a sharp whistle. Loki came out a gap in the side of the shack, something clutched in his paws. He came to a stop at her feet and Chris saw that he held the pistol.

"Ye little thief!" Chris exclaimed as she bent down to pick him up. "Good job, mate!" She relieved him of the pistol and gave him a kiss on his head. "That'll teach him to mind his manners, won't it?" Loki basked in her affectionate kisses and strokes until she lifted him up to her shoulder and he hopped right on and assumed his normal stance as he and Chris continued their journey.

Chris found her next gift with the help of her feet. Since she had learned to despise shoes for the difficulty they created in climbing rigging, she never put them on unless they were absolutely needed and, as such, she of course did not wear them about Madagascar. As she continued walking along the beach to the next pirate camp, her attention was focused on the dark clouds gathering on the horizon when something sharp suddenly sliced into her foot.

"AH! Bollocks, bleeding, bloody—" She hopped on her uninjured foot, grabbing for the one that hurt. She saw the flash of red, hopped to the side of where she had walked, and sat. Upon closer inspection she saw a violent red stream of blood stemming from the wound and dripping into the sand, turning it a rusty reddish color. Loki made a soft, questionable sound in the back of his throat. Chris looked to where she had previously been walking and spotted something metallic glinting in the sun. She furrowed her brow and reached for it, digging around it until she spotted something white and smooth. She pulled the object from the sand. What had punctured her foot was a knife with a mother of pearl handle. She scooted over to where the tide was coming in and after Chris washed the blood off scrubbed the blade with some sand, it shined brighter than the moon. A smile spread onto Chris' lips. Marty had been complaining for months about how none of his knifes were doing the job when he spliced lines. This knife had pierced through Chris' rough feet easier than the _Pearl_ glided through water. Chris wrapped the knife in her damask bandana, decided to let the sand stem the flow of blood from her foot, and continued on her way.

As Chris approached the next pirate camp, a silver haired man standing on the perimeter held his hand up to her. "Halt! You can't come any further!"

The woman arched an eyebrow. "I just come to barter for some items." Chris said calmly, holding up her bag.

"No one can pass through or enter without beating my King in a fistfight." The man replied. "This includes barter and trade.

Chris arched her eyebrow higher. What foolishness was this? "Are ye serious?"

The man nodded. "You see, our crew thinks it's silly, but our captain has a passion for boxing, and he is a bit bored here. He's willing to take any challengers."

Chris ran a hand through her hair. Loki cocked his head to the side. She certainly wasn't going to head into the tree line and skirt around the camp just to have to do the same on her return "Alright, alright. Show me to him."

The silver haired man's face lit up. "Yes. Yeah!" He motioned for her to follow him. He led past a row of tents, a few fire pits, and finally opened the flap of a big white tent and ushered her inside. There were tables set about the edges of the tent. The middle of the space was marked off with a line of flour, and the sand inside had been raked smooth. At one of the tables sat a muscular man with curly black hair, playing cards.

"We got one, King Bastian!" Silver-hair announced, leading Chris to the table.

The aforementioned Bastian's lips turned upward. "Good! Excellent!" He looked up from his cards and his smile faltered."A girl?" He looked Chris up and down. "Really?"

"If ye don't have the stones mate, I'll be more than happy to continue on me way." Chris said, cocking her head to the side and smiling.

Bastian chuckled. "It's just that I was taught to never raise my hand to a lady, but if you're game for it... I don't see why not. Now, what do you want if you win?" He asked.

Chris was about to say, "Right to barter with your crew" when she saw the fine, Navy blue jacket Bastian was wearing. Rags needed a new coat. His old one forever smelled of animals, and it was becoming threadbare in the elbows and fraying around the hem. "Yer coat." She answered.

Bastian chuckled again. "Women and clothing, I swear…" His crew laughed. "If I win, I want yer shirt." Some of the men sitting at the table hooted and whistled. Loki glared at them and leaped onto the table, baring his teeth defensively. The man peeled off said coat and handed it to one of his men, and then pulled his white over shirt off to reveal a lean, muscular fighter's physique beneath. He tossed it to the side and approached Chris, glowing with pride as she looked upon his form. _Men, I swear…_ Chris kept her lips together in a line and tilted her head to the side. Bastian smirked and extended his hand. "Since ye're a woman, any use of the body is encouraged, but no weapons. Do we have a deal miss...?"

"Chris. No 'miss'." She took his hand and shook it. "We do have a deal."

"Good!" He threw a sudden punch that sent Chris staggering. She regained her balance and threw her sack aside. Loki shrieked from his table top, as though to say, "Foul play!"

Bastian threw another punch that sent Chris into the sand. She looked up as Bastian mugged for his men. Chris looked at her bare foot right next to Bastian's ankle. She bared her teeth and swiped at his ankle with her own. His legs went out underneath him and he landed right next to her. Arms went reaching and each shoved the other away just enough so that they could pull themselves to their feet.

Bastian's men began chanting to egg their captain on. "Bastian... Bastian... Bastian! _Bastian_!" The sand was circled by his men, and Loki leaped upon the silver-haired man's back to add his shrieks in.

Chris lunged at Bastian and he opened his arms. He threw them about her and picked her up, spinning them both around. His men cackled and laughed as she wriggled, and Bastian grinned at her. Her hands were pinned at her side, and she was starting to get dizzy from the twirling. She bunched her hands into fists, reached out with her forearms as best as she could and brought her fists crashing onto his ribs. Bastian coughed and released her, doubling over in pain. Chris reeled back as his men booed and Bastian regained his breath. She kept near the rim of the circle as he stood up, watching her like a hawk. Chris saw him wink, and then he barreled towards her. His hands went up as he approached her. Her fists were raised, but he unexpectedly grabbed her head and cranked himself around so that she was secured in a headlock. Her derriere was poking up high in the air as she bent over, causing the men to let out hoots and hollers of appreciation. Chris gritted her teeth as she felt Bastian's perspiration on her face and could smell his masculine odor. She wrinkled her nose, turned her head, and blew a huge raspberry against Bastian's side.

"Oh God no!" He began cackling, and his grip loosened. Chris blew an even harder raspberry and his sides heaved with mirth. Between his heaving sides and his loosened grip, Chris pulled herself from Bastian's grasp and placed a kick in his backside. He tumbled into his men, his laughter resounding through the tent, and fell to the ground. His men urged him to get up, but he could not he was laughing so hard.

No one was counting, so Chris called out, "One… Two… Three!" The men turned to the woman and glared.

"No… No!" Bastian laughed, seeing his men's expressions. "It was…" He cackled, "A fair fight!" He calmed himself and stumbled to his feet. He walked forward, offering his hand for Chris to shake. "I have never, ever seen anyone use that technique, Chris! Nor have I ever felt a female's lips so soft." Chris cocked an eyebrow. "Where's me coat?" His man who held it handed it to him. Bastian presented it to Chris and said, "I willingly give this coat to ye with one more condition: Ye must dine with me tonight." He grinned.

Chris smiled softly. "I accept, Bastian." Chris, Loki, and Bastian supped at a separate table from the rest of his men, and it seemed that Bastian was intent on trying to lure Chris into his bed with very flirtatious comments and thinly veiled intimate allusions. Chris, though flattered and enjoying Bastian's company very much, had to decline not only because it was Christmas Eve, but also because she needed to find one more gift: Jack's.

"Ah, love of my life, stay, stay!" Bastian bade, grasping Chris' hand as she stood from the table. "Stay here where the company is warm and the beds are very, very soft." He winked and his grin widened.

Chris grinned and said, "I must be going, I am expected back by my king." She gently pulled her hand from Bastian's grasp and threw her now full bag onto her back.

"If you must go, you shall take my heart with you!" Bastian declared. Loki eyed him suspiciously from Chris' shoulder.

"Alas and alack, we are too different, Bastian." Chris said, shaking her head. "But I shall always… relish this day I spent with you. Happy Christmas." And with that, she pulled a mock curtsy and exited the tent. As she and Loki walked away from the warm atmosphere, a cold wind blew and impending storm clouds were approaching. The light was already growing dim, and Chris knew she had to hurry if she did not want to be caught in the storm in the dark on the way back to the _Black Pearl_'s camp.

She approached a rather small camp after leaving Bastian's. It consisted of less than a dozen tents, and a very small schooner was anchored in the water nearby. She went to the nearest flap and, not knowing what else to do, announced, "I've come to trade if anyone is interested in trading." The head of an older gentleman who was missing his two front teeth popped out of the flap.

"Trade?" He asked.

"Aye, I have some trinkets and I've come to see if ye might have anything worth bartering for." Chris replied.

The man scratched his balding head. "We have some old bottles of wine." His eyes saw Loki and he smiled.

That could definitely be a possibility. "I'd like to trade for one of them, then."

"Come in out of the wind then, lass!" The man ushered Chris inside and when she entered she saw three bedrolls on the ground, a table set up with the remains of dinner, and several hay-filled crates. Chris figured the bottles of wine rested within. Two other similar old men sat at the table, one who was bald as an egg and the other who had a long braided beard. "This lass has come to trade!" The man who greeted Chris crowed.

The bald man looked to the monkey and so did his companion. He rubbed his shiny head and said, "We do have rare wine vintages, plundered from a seaside castle."

"Which would you consider the best?" Chris asked, lowering her bag.

The bald man stood and crossed to one of the crates, tossing tufts of hay from it before pulling out a rather ancient looking bottle of wine. "Made in '52 of the last century." He said, though it did not have a label. "I've heard that the rain that fed the grapes made this one of the best merlots."

Chris honestly didn't know anything about wine, even though her parents had a love for them when she lived in their house. She was more into hard alcohol anyway. "What do ye want for it?" She asked, her hand diving into her bag to retrieve her leftover trinkets.

"Your monkey." The bald man replied quickly.

Chris looked from the man to her ape and immediately replied, "No." She had rescued the poor ape from a ghost pirate ship, and she would be damned if anything short of death ever parted them. Loki chirped curiously.

The bald man groaned in distress. "I'll throw in a couple other bottles as well." He offered.

"No deal." The woman replied. "I'm sure there are monkeys about Madagascar; why don't you catch one?"

"It's too hard, and we've been at it for weeks. But then again, their color won't do for a wig, really." The bald man replied. Chris' eyes opened in distress. They wanted Loki for his fur? She reached up and stroked him protectively, but then the bald man's eyes widened. "Hey, hey! If ye won't trade the monkey, how about your hair? We'd just cut up to your chin, not all of it."

She blinked a few times just as the wind whipped up and stirred the entire tent. Chris had to make a decision quickly. The storm would arrive soon and light was fading fast. Either she cut her hair and got the bottle of wine for Jack, or she kept her hair and turned up empty handed at the 'Midnight Mass,' which wouldn't do at all. And it was just hair anyway, not anything to terribly important. Right? She sighed. "Fine. Just make the cut clean."

The old men didn't have anything close to sharp enough to cut Chris' hair with, so she pulled Marty's knife from the sack and unwrapped it from her bandana. She handed the knife to the bald man, and the balding man who had greeted her helped her tied her hair back. Loki watched all that was occurring with a cocked head and questioning expression. The bald man quickly cut Chris' ponytail off, and she couldn't help but feel some measure of sadness. She had never cut her hair, and this hair had at one time been stroked and dressed by her mother who was gone, ruffled by her father, and one time, dipped into an inkwell by James. She sighed as the bald man pronounced, "Done!"

Her hand flew up to feel the absence of hair at the nape of her neck. She sighed once more and suddenly felt how cold it was without her hair on her neck and shoulders. The bald man handed her the bottle of wine and it went back into the sack along with Marty's knife. "Thank you very much, lass! You've brought a measure of youth back to me!" The bald man said, fingering her former chestnut locks.

"Yes, well." Chris tied her damask bandana about her head to keep the chill away from it. "Thank ye for the wine."

"Do you have somewhere to go?" The bearded pirate asked, speaking for the first time. "If not, you could stay here…"

"I need to get back to my king." Chris said, "But thank you." What was it about Madagascar that sent just about every man not on the _Black Pearl_ into a hormone driven frenzy? "Happy Christmas!"

"And you!" With that, Chris and Loki headed out into the rapidly approaching night, tramping back to their camp as fast as they could.

"_Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright..."_

Later that night, Jack led his crew in song. Most of them were drunk and on the verge of passing out, but he pretended not to notice as he stood upon a powder keg and swiped his hands through the air. Chris had returned just as the yearly Christmas tree, a very squat palm with many long, lush leaves, was erected. "Just where have you been?" Jack demanded to know. Chris simply smiled and darted into her hut to wrap the gifts she carried within her bag. The wind had died down and now the weather was ominously still. The candles that the palm tree had been decorated with did not even flicker, but cast a rather intense light upon the few spare pieces of jewelry and Oriental coins that hung from the palm tree's branches. The perimeter of the camp was lit with torches, and overall the camp maintained a rather intimate atmosphere. The palm tree stood beside Jack as he continued conducting the Christmas hymn.

"_Round yon virgin, mother and child..._" Gibbs groaned and couldn't stay upright anymore. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell into the sand face first. Chris stifled a giggled and rolled him over so he wouldn't breathe in sand in his drunken stupor and continued singing.

"_Sleep in Heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace..._" They all finished at different times, with their captain trying to end each of them with a flourish of his hands. Once there was some form of silence, Jack stood straighter on his keg and began to speak.

"I'd like to thank all of ye for helping me with the tree..." His eyes lingered on Chris and she grinned at him. He grinned as well "Now, as we _all _know, in the Bible it says…" He veered off into a hefty and very unrealistic version of the first Christmas, as well as made several euphemisms as to how attractive the Virgin Mary was. When he was finally done, he finished his story with, "...Amen! Now let's get to the presents!"

The presents sat beneath the palm tree, wrapped in anything from brown paper to cloth to large banana leaves, and all of the pirates now searched forward to claim their own respectable booty. Chris aided Athos in finding his presents, (Athos couldn't read, which Chris decided she needed to work on before winter was over) and he thanked her profusely for the whetstone. Once Anamaria had opened up her small pistol, the pair of them went off with their other presents and their laughter could be heard all about the camp.

"Poppet?" Ragetti asked meekly, walking towards her with a small bundle as she handed her handkerchiefs out. "Happy Christmas, poppet!" He shoved the bundle into her hands. Under his gaze, she stuffed the remaining handkerchiefs into her pockets and then unwrapped the bundle. She pulled out a coat, badly stitched and made up of several different pieces of cloth, including canvas, silk, cotton, and felt. It also had several different buttons to close it. It was one of the ugliest things Chris had ever seen but she loved it for the character that it possessed. A huge grin cracked her face in two.

"Thanks Rags!" She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, the familiar scent of animals that he possessed wafting into her nostrils. "Could ye hold it for me while I shrug into it?" Ragetti did so and once she closed the buttons, her grin widened. "Thank ye, Rags, it's great and powerfully warm!"

"Happy Christmas, poppet." Ragetti grinned and hugged her before joining Pintel in pursuit of their gifts. It turned out Ragetti couldn't read either, but Pintel could.

"Whiskey Girl!" Marak and Giles marched into camp, a long retinue of their crew following, including Whit, Marc, and Katherine. Marak was carrying a miniature keg on his shoulder, the crew members were carrying various items of food, and Giles was singing a drunken version of "Noel." Marak came to a stop in front of Chris and sat the keg at her feet. "One keg of whiskey for the girl." He announced, grinning.

"Happy Christmas, Chris!" Giles leaned forward and kissed both of her cheeks. The kisses were wet and left the scent of alcohol on her.

"Thank you, both of you." Chris said, laughing. "Ye also have two gifts beneath the tree, mates." She said when she plucked out two handkerchiefs and handed them to the pirates as their crewmates walked to the long table that had been erected to hold the food and drink for the evening's festivities. Giles remarked how soft his handkerchief was before the two continued on to the food, singing "God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen" at the top of their lungs.

"Oh Chris!" Jack called, bidding her to come hither with a jerk of his pointer finger. She approached, smiling. "Merry Christmas, wench." He handed her a small box, wrapped in brown paper, and adorned with a flower.

"Thank you, brute." Chris accepted the package and Jack thumbed her bandana.

"It's not even blowin', Chris, why are ye even wearin' that?"

"Have ye opened yer present yet from me, captain?" Chris replied.

"No." Jack elbowed his way between those at the tree and came back with his present from Chris. "Let's unwrap them together. On three. One, two –" He ripped the paper from his before he said three and laughed at Chris' expression. Loki chattered at the captain as he pulled the bottle of wine from the wrapping. "Oh Chris, ye know the way to me heart!" Jack grinned in a flash of gold. "But… That does not explain the bandana."

Chris had not opened her present just yet. She pulled the bandana from her hair and revealed that almost none of it was there. Jack's jaw dropped and Chris said, "My hair is now being made into a wig for that wine. Hope ye like it."

Jack seemed flustered. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times before finally saying, "You know, ye look like a man with hair that short."

"Oh! Always the gentleman!" Chris laughed. Turning her attention to the gift, she plucked the flower from it and tucked it behind her ear, but not on the side Loki sat upon, for she didn't want him attacking her head to eat it. She pulled the paper from her gift and beheld a wooden box. She opened it and pulled out a rope of pearls long enough that she could wrap it around her throat thrice and still hang down. Chris arched an eyebrow at Jack.

"I thought that ye might use them. Ye know, for your disguises and such. And perhaps now to stop looking like such a man." Jack said, shrugging.

Chris smiled softly and hugged her captain in a one-armed hug. "Thank ye, captain. Thank ye very much."

"Alright, stop taking advantage of me ye lustful wench! I'm hungry." Jack grinned at Chris and the pair walked to the table of food.

All of the sudden, the clouds in the dark sky began to glow pink, illuminating the camp a little bit more, and the temperature dropped. The pressure in the air changed, and some people looked up expectantly. And then, the first snowflake of many came spiraling out of the clouds and landed upon Marty's thin beard. All looked up as an astonishing amount of snow fell from the sky so quickly the torches were having some trouble burning.

"Snow! Can ye believe it?" Some murmured.

"I've never seen this before!" Said others.

Jack frowned at the fast accumulating flakes. "I hate snow."

"Really?" Chris asked. She scraped enough from the food table to compact into a small snowball, pulled her hand back, and threw it at Jack. It hit him square in the face. She laughed and bounced away from him, a crazed grin on her face. Everyone was silent as they watched what was surely going to be a reaction to insubordination by the pirate captain.

Jack reached up and raked chunks of snow from his beard and face. "I hope you like snow, Thomas!" He grabbed a handful of snow from the table. Chris let out a mad cackle and hopped from foot to foot as Jack pulled his arm back and launched the snowball at Chris. She ducked and the snowball hit Anamaria in the chest. She then grabbed a handful of snow and fired it off at Jack, but he ducked and the snowball hit Giles in the mustache. Slowly but surely, the entire camp of pirates began to participate in an all out snowball war on the Madagascar beach. It was the best Christmas any had experienced in a very long time.

oOo

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Jack Frost nipping at your nose

Yule-tide carols being sung by a choir

And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey

and some mistletoe

Help to make the season bright

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow

Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know that Santa's on his way

He's loaded lots of toys

and goodies on his sleigh

And every mother's child is gonna spy

To see if reindeer

really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase

To kids from one to ninety-two

Although it's been said

Many times, many ways

Merry Christmas to you.


	8. Isabella !

**Chapter Eight  
Isabella**

In early March the _Black Pearl_ was scraped free of barnacles, fresh fruit and water were gathered from the island and stored with the provisions, and the island of Madagascar was slowly being vacated of pirates. The crew was working on getting the ship back into sailing trim by replacing worn lines and hanging the sails once more. As Chris oversaw the raising of the sails a few days before their intended departure, Jack came up to her with Gibbs at his side. "As soon as ye're done, we need to talk."

"Just a minute, captain, I need to make sure the sails are secure." As Chris said that, there was a call to heave and the sail she stood under billowed upwards as the lines attached to it was pulled. Chris held the bottom, making sure that the black canvas didn't catch on anything as it cascaded upward. Once it was raised to the top of the yardarm, it was secured by Athos and Marty. Chris then turned to her captain. "What do ye need, captain?"

Jack looked hesitant to speak on the deck. He turned to Anamaria, who was standing nearby, splicing a new line. "Can ye handle the raising of the sails from here?" He asked. Chris arched her eyebrows.

"Aye." Anamaria and Chris switched places and then Gibbs, Jack, and Chris filed into the captain's cabin, the door closing behind them.

As Jack turned to address his first mate and quartermaster, Chris asked, "What's going on, captain? Ye're making me mighty nervous."

Jack let out a breath. "Giles got word from some of the other pirates that a British admiral named Mathias Chesed knows that pirates winter at Madagascar, and he knows that a fair amount of them have to go through the Atlantic to get to their tramping grounds. He's organized several small ships that are strategically placed around the tip of Africa. He's going to do his best to blow as many of us as he can out of the water."

"Mother and child!" Gibbs exclaimed. He and Chris exchanged looks. This was dismal news, especially after a winter of laziness and leisure. There was a short silence, and then Gibbs asked, "What do ye propose we do, captain?"

"I was hoping ye'd ask that." Jack grinned. "There is no need to worry, my fine mates, for Giles is recruiting another ship to sail with the _Pearl_ and the _Tout de Suite_ from Madagascar. Three ships should be able to plow through to the Atlantic, and then we'll separate and go our own ways."

Chris bit her lip in anxiety. It was dodgy, but what other options did they have? And she was more concerned with the character of whoever the captain of this other ship was. "What about this other ship? I know we're all pirates, but some are more trustworthy than others, and I don't fancy us staking our crew's lives and our own on some strange captain." Gibbs nodded in agreement.

"Now, now, Chris, no need to get into a fuss." Jack said with a flourish of his hands. "The captain of the other vessel is Marak's sibling. I think it's safe to say we can trust someone who's from the same stock as Marak, wouldn't you agree, _Christiana_?" Chris arched her eyebrow at Jack. Just what exactly had she done to warrant being called by her full name? Gibbs also looked at her sideways. Since the conversation was about the trustworthiness of Marak, she wondered if it was because over the past three months, Chris had been spending an increasing amount of time with Marak instead of the crew of the _Black Pearl_. She couldn't help it that she was making friends elsewhere! And just why would Jack care anyway?

Chris decided to let it go. "Since we're having fellow travelers, are we still leaving on Wednesday?"

"Aye." Jack said. "Tomorrow evening, we're dining with Giles and the other captain and their officers before we sail off. I want to make sure the _Pearl_ is as clean as possible and looks her best." Jack grinned. "I'm not the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow for nothing, after all." He paused and then said, "So what are ye waiting for?" He shooed them. "Get back to work!

By Tuesday evening, the sails of the _Black Pearl_ were all raised, the decks had been swabbed until they were newly white and shining, and Chris did not think she had ever seen the pirate vessel so free of salt or filth. The crew said goodbye to their huts and tents on the beach and filed back aboard the _Black Pearl_ so that they would be fresh and aboard when she set sail the next morning. Sometime in the afternoon, Giles' tall ship the _Tout de Suite_ and a frigate named the _Blanco Muerte_ joined the _Black Pearl_ in her beachside harbor. They anchored so that a board thrown across the _Tout de Suite_ from the _Blanco Muerte_, and then one thrown across from the _Tout_ to the _Pearl_ allowed all those on board access to the other ships. As the sun set, Marak boarded the _Pearl_ as Chris and Loki came up from her cabin.

"My lady!" He greeted, bowing low, his black hair cascading down over his shoulders. "Might I escort you to dinner?" He offered his arm.

Chris shook her head. "Thank ye for your chivalry, but I think not, mate. I've already got my escort." He gestured to the monkey that rode upon her shoulders and Marak laughed.

"I'll follow you then." The trio then made their way to Jack's cabin. The navigation table had been cleared off and set with some ancient china that Chris had never seen before. Several bottles of alcohol rested upon the table, as well as a variety of fruit. Cotton had clearly outdone himself, for he had somehow acquired a wild boar from Madagascar and had roasted it. The upper half of the boar, head included, sat upon the table as the center piece. The bottom half had probably gone to feed the crew. Jack was just pulling the curtains about his bed as Chris and Marak walked in, shortly followed by Giles and Gibbs.

"Here we are!" Jack said, crossing to the table. "Now we are only awaiting the _Blanco Muerte_'s captain and we can start." He positioned himself behind the chair at the head of the table, and the others assumed their own positions. The chairs to the left and right of Jack's chair were for the other captains, so Gibbs, Marak, and Chris were further down the table. Chris went to pull her chair out to sit, but Jack said, "Uh uh uh! Not until the other captain arrives."

Chris' stomach was already growling at the smell of boar and so at this, she grimaced. "Yes, captain." Time slowly ticked by. Chris was convinced that the boar was going to be cold and flies were going to start gathering, but still they waited. Loki even became so bored that he leaped upon the shelves above the table and lounged there, yawning. Chris was just about ready to swipe some fruit from the table and run for it when the cabin's door banged open. "Finally," Chris mumbled under her breath, and then upon seeing the captain, her jaw dropped.

The captain of the _Blanco Muerte_ was a woman. That wasn't what made Chris' jaw drop, for she had heard of female pirate captains. Hell, if she ever became so inclined, she would like to captain her own ship one day. But the only female pirate captain she had ever met wore trousers and dressed much like a man. This captain, however, looked like she had just casually dropped in from a ball. The woman had long black hair, swept back with a mother of pearl comb, her lips were painted red, and she wore a long scarlet silk gown with gold lace fringing the sleeves, neckline, and hem. Her lips curved upward in a smile as she lowered in a curtsey.

"Thank you for waiting, gentlemen." She purred before noticing Chris. Her smile flickered. "And lady. I simply could not for the life of me find the dress I needed."

Jack swept his hat from his head and bowed low. Giles, Marak, and Gibbs followed suit, while Chris did her usual mock curtsy none-too-happily. Marak smiled and walked to the female captain, offering his arm. She accepted it. "This is my twin sister, Isabella." He announced, walking her to her chair.

Jack pulled it out for her and she paused. "You are Jack, if I am not mistaken?" She asked, her ever-present smile widening.

"I am Captain Jack Sparrow, aye." She offered her hand. Jack accepted it and bent over the appendage. Chris coughed to cover up a gag. First of all, this woman was so much more holier-than-thou. Second of all, it was _Captain _Jack _Sparrow_. Third of all, just what in the Hell was a pirate doing wearing a ball gown?

"Pleased to meet you." Isabella purred. She pulled her hand away from him and sat in her chair. Jack scooted it back in and returned to his chair. As one, the rest of the pirates seated themselves and began tucking into the meal. As Jack poured Isabella a good deal of wine, the wine that Chris had given him for Christmas as a matter of fact, Isabella looked at the pirate captain. Chris was probably the only one who noticed the weight of her gaze. It was something of lust, but it was also decision. Isabella's eyes slightly narrowed at the corner and her smile widened. Chris did not trust that look at all. She found it suspicious and full of unknown intentions. Her gaze was broken as Gibbs asked if she wanted rum, and she turned to answer him.

As the pirates began eating their sumptuous banquet, Chris couldn't help but notice that Isabella wiped her hands on her handkerchief and patted her lips daintily after each bite. Chris usually wiped her hands on her trousers and wiped her mouth with her sleeve, but seeing this, she started thinking of the manners she had long ago abandoned. And she thought Jack noticed too. She wished for a moment that she had a handkerchief or something to show that she wasn't positively barbaric. And then she caught herself. _What the Hell, Chris? _ There was a major lull in the conversation as people chewed and swallowed. Chris was becoming bored and agitated just before Loki jumped from the shelves with a wicked battle cry. Chris had entirely forgotten that he had been in the cabin. The ape landed upon the boar's head and immediately bounded to a bowl containing bananas. His little paws snatched one and he began peeling the fruit from the bottom. He looked up as he stuffed the fruit into his mouth and found that he was right in front of Isabella. They both stared at each other, and then Isabella screamed. Loki, not to be outdone, matched her pitch, the half-masticated banana falling from his mouth and onto Isabella's plate.

"Chris, get that damn ape out of my cabin!" Jack howled, swiping a hand at the monkey. Chris had never seen him so upset by her pet. Loki jumped as Jack's hand throttled towards him and, but the monkey remained untouched. The ape then grabbed his chewed banana from Isabella's plate, stuffed it into his mouth, and catapulted across the table towards his master. Bowls of fruit and mugs of drink were tipped over by his tail as Loki approached Chris and then leaped to her chest. Chris clutched the monkey like a child to her bosom and fled from the cabin, letting the door slam closed behind her.

Once on deck, Chris brought Loki out before her so she could survey him. His mouth moved up and down as he finished chewing his banana and swallowed. Chris felt a sudden surge of affection for the small ape who had been her almost-constant companion since she found him on the _Tempest_ more than a year before. Even though he could not speak, it was as if he always knew exactly what her intentions were and always tried to accommodate her, tonight included. "My knight in shining armor!" She kissed the top of the chimp's head and he chattered in pleasure as her fingers rubbed his furry body in a massage. Once Chris' fingers halted, Loki leaped from her grasp to a line and continued climbing upwards. The door to Jack's cabin opened and Marak stepped out, wiping bits of fruit from his pants that also had splotches of drink upon them. Upon seeing Chris still lingering about, he shook his head and chuckled.

"I'd recommend you and Loki stay out of Jack's way tonight." He suggested, brushing at the alcohol on his pants. "Jack swore and oath and looked like he was in the mood to dine upon monkey on a stick."

"Oh, don't worry. I think I'll make sure Loki stays out of his way for the next week. He's never been too keen on my little ape." Chris replied, smiling as she remembered when Jack had very plainly told her so over a year ago. Marak poked at her shirt and she looked down to see there was a splash of red wine upon it.

"Ah, he got you as well! Mutinous little creature." Marak smiled.

Chris chuckled and then got an idea. It was their last night in Madagascar, so why not? "A bath sounds good right about now. Excuse me one moment, won't you?" Marak nodded, and Chris sauntered over to the bulkhead. She pulled a line down from the top and threw it overboard. There was a splashing sound as it hit the water, and Marak watched Chris with interest. Chris climbed atop the bulkhead, turned to Marak and said, "Bon voyage!" With a whoop, she flipped over the side of the _Black Pearl_ and plummeted down to the water, her now shoulder length hair haloing her face as she sank. The water was cool enough so that it was refreshing, but slightly shiver-inducing as she sank down. The moon's light illuminated her in the water. When she surfaced, she heard another whoop and something hit the water beside her.

Marak surfaced, his long hair covering half his face. He raked his black locks from his mouth and treaded water, a smile upon his face. "It's no tub of soap, but it'll do." He said, laughing.

"Oh come now, Marak! It's good for ye, invigorating, like." Chris splashed some water and belted out, "Oh that I was a mermaid and could swim these waters forever, eternally clean and yet saltier than any sailor on the earth!"

Marak shushed her with a finger to his lips. "Don't talk about mermaids; it's bad luck!" he beckoned.

Chris swam closer to Marak and put her arms around his neck. In the moonlight she could see his different colored eyes, one the same color as the water they treaded, the other the color of the palms of Madagascar. They were quite beautiful. "Don't tell me ye're superstitious, Marak." She said, smiling.

"I'm not superstitious, I am cautious." Marak replied, pulling the rest of his hair from his face. "There is a fine line."

"Then surely you don't think women onboard ships are bad luck?" Chris asked, winking at him. Marak's hands reached up to her face, cupping it tenderly. Chris' stomach tumbled and she found herself wanting for breath.

"Not at all." Marak said softly. He thumbed her cheek and leaned forward, joining their lips in a gentle, cautious kiss. Chris' eyes closed and she felt her arms about his neck become weak. When their lips parted, Marak grinned at her. "If anything, I feel lucky."

The next morning, Chris was assigned to the watch in which the _Black Pearl _and its fellow ships would make sail. Jack also roused himself to make sure that everything was in working order. He surveyed Chris as she emerged from the forecastle, lacking anything upon her shoulder but her shirt, and seemed pleased. Chris climbed into the top and soon heard Jack barking orders.

"Alright, you scabbers dogs!" Jack called as he walked the breadth of his ship, heading for the bridge. "Let out the sails and let's get away from this rock!" Pirates scurried about, raising the anchor, tending lines, and adjusting the sails. Athos raised their Jolly Roger, which was a white skull that looked suspiciously like it would belong to Jack and a red sparrow on a black background, and the _Tout de Suite_ and the _Blanco Muerte _flew their own colors. The _Black Pearl_ gave a tremendous lurch as she tendered into open water, the sails filling and billowing with the breeze. The _Black Pearl_ surged forward to become the veritable leader of the triad of ships and as her bow pointed south and away from Madagascar, Chris turned in the top and bade farewell to the island. As she did_,_ she saw Marak aboard the _Tout de Suite_. His face was turned towards her, and as she gazed upon him, he waved and then placed a hand upon his breast. She turned back into the breeze and grinned.

Three days later, the small fleet had just rounded the tip of Africa. Over those three days, the captains would dine together (Marak, Gibbs, and Chris in attendance), and afterward, all would go down to drink or converse with the crewmates of the _Black Pearl_, except for the captain of the ship and Isabella. Isabella and Jack stayed in his cabin. This bothered Chris. Jack had been with women before, and it had never bothered her (well, except for Melody, but she wasn't really a woman but a demon), but this woman did. She was just so… Unsettling. And Chris felt that her affections weren't genuine.

"What's the story with yer sister?" Chris asked one evening as she sipped her rum ration. All was quiet in the crew's hold, and she knew that soon her beau and his captain would head back to the _Tout de Suite_. Whether Isabella would return to her ship or not was left up to speculation.

"What do you mean by that?" Marak asked, his eyebrow arching in suspicion.

"I've just never seen a female pirate wear gowns like her." Chris replied, hurriedly doing her best not to sound negative. It did seem that Isabella had an unending amount of dresses, each more extravagant than the last. Indeed, the dress she had worn this evening even had a short train attached. Chris had no idea how the dresses didn't get destroyed in the day to day running of a ship, or how they stayed so bloody _clean_.

"We were raised by an uncle after our mother left, and she never really was able to wear pretty dresses until we became pirates. I think sometimes she over-indulges." Marak shrugged and scratched the back of his head.

"How did she get into pirating, exactly?" Chris asked as casually as she could.

"She just kind of followed me into it, I guess." Marak said. "She really likes the idea of being a famous pirate of great renown." _Aha_! Chris thought, and immediately became suspicious of just why Isabella was spending so much time with Jack; she must want to leech off of Jack's fame. At that moment, Giles stood and nodded to his first mate, and Marak stood as well. He reached for Chris' hand and squeezed it. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course." Chris replied, rubbing their joined hands with her free one.

"What will it take for me to get you to sign onto the _Tout de Suite _once we make it to the Atlantic?" Marak mused, a tender smile sliding onto his face.

"Much more than a few sugared words, I assure you." Chris laughed.

Marak's smile stayed in place and he leaned down so that his face was level with Chris'. "We'll just see about that." He gave her a peck on the cheek and followed his captain above. From across the hold, Anamaria doinked her eyebrows at her friend. Chris stuck out her tongue in reply and laughed.

The third morning, just as the sun had just risen, Chris was at the helm. The weather was damp and foggy, and she was very grateful for the coat that Ragetti had given her for Christmas for it kept her warm in the cold mist. The three ships had been ringing their bells in the fog so that the sound would bounce off any close object and they would know to steer clear. Chris was just about to ring the bell for the next watch when a gigantic ship suddenly loomed from the fog at the bow of the _Pearl_. Her breath caught in her chest as she saw the English flag flying high and then heard the call, "FIRE!" The gun ports of the ship were opened and immediately they spat fire and cannonballs hurtled at the _Black Pearl_. And the guns weren't any guns, but long nines. Chris watched, eyes wide, as the cannon balls punched neat little holes through the sails and some of the bulkhead splintered. The ship must have heard the ringing of the pirate vessels' bells and laid in wait for them! Chris grabbed the bell's cord and pulled it back and forth as fast as she could. The rapid ringing of the bell meant that everyone on the board should move to their stations for battle.

The bells of the _Tout de Suite_ and _Blanco Muerte_ echoed the _Pearl_'s alarm. Chris grabbed the wheel and turned it hard a-starboard, for she did not wish to collide with the British behemoth that she saw was fittingly named _Titan_. The _Titan_ was huge, but the _Black Pearl_ was small and could maneuver quickly compared to the larger ship. As the _Titan_'s guns were reloaded, the _Pearl_ began to skirt her. Jack emerged from his cabin, clapping his hat upon his head.

"Everyone to **ARMS**!" Jack called out, climbing the stairs to the bridge. His hands brushed against Chris' as he took the wheel "Help man the guns!" He commanded. "No boarding for us, we're getting the Hell out of here!" Chris nodded, and turned so fast Loki had to clutch her shirt to keep from falling off as she skidded below. Never before had they been surprised like they had been today, and Chris hoped this surprise would not be their last. Down on the gun deck, cannon balls were rolling, some falling down the stairwell with large crashes, and gunpowder was being spilled from sloppiness and scared sailors.

"_MIND YER GUNPOWDER_!" Chris cursed at the others upon her arrival. "Do you want to do the Navy's job **for them**?" At that moment, the long nines of the _Titan_ fired for the second time. Chris thought that they had all been blown to kingdom come as splinters and cries filled the air. Loki even flew from her shoulders and upon hitting the deck, rolled and dove into what cover the space beneath the stairwell could provide. The _Black Pearl_ gave a great big lurch that sent more cannon balls rolling.

"Bloody hell!" Pintel cursed. Chris could not agree more, but this wasn't the time. The guns were primed and no one was giving the order to fire.

"**FIRE**." Chris commanded. With a roar of fire and the smell of burning powder the guns of the _Black Pearl_ went off, catapulting cannon balls into the _Titan's_ strong side. What Chris saw through the gun ports awed her. Their cannon balls embedded into the hull, only a few breaking through the wood. They weren't going to kill off many men through mere cannon fire. Chris quickly made a decision.

"Fire at will!" Chris left the gun deck and stormed up the stairs, falling once more as the _Titan_ fired again. When she finally pulled herself onto the main deck, she headed straight for the bridge. Over the roar of the cannon she informed Jack, "The _Titan_ isn't being hurt as badly as we are!"

"Thanks fer telling me, love." Jack replied sarcastically, his hands rigid on the wheel. The _Titan _fired yet again and Chris was amazed they were still afloat. "Maybe if we turn port and our sails catch enough wind, we can lessen the _Pearl_ as a target and slip away." Jack wondered aloud, turning the wheel.

"I'll try and buy us time!" Chris raced from the bridge down to where the boarding weapons were kept. She took a rifle, shot, wad, and powder before returning to the deck and crossing to a bulkhead near the stairway to the bridge. There was enough cover there for her to fire and still have clean shots. She kneeled and hugged the butt of the rifle to her shoulder. The rifles were always kept loaded for boarding. Probably not the safest measure, but effective in times like this. Chris aimed for the thin space between the cannon and the gun port on the _Titan_. She looked for possible human targets, took careful aim, and fired before immediately reloading. She would get lucky now and then, hitting one of the men, but when she saw the success wasn't as great as she could have wished, she changed her target. Chris moved the sights of her rifle to the men on deck, deciding they were easier targets. She slowly worked her way through the top and down to the wheel.

As she shot the helmsman, she witnessed the man that must have been the admiral Jack spoke of on deck. His hat was unmistakable. Mathias Chesed's hair was long, dark brown, and curly. He had a mustache as well as a goatee, and his eyes were an eerie, icy blue. It was almost as though he knew he was being watched, for he turned to Chris just as she brought him into her sights. The pair locked eyes, and Chris felt a tremor run through her that was not from a cannon ball hit. She pulled the trigger and the rifle misfired. Chesed smiled, pointed at her, and said something to his men. She hit the deck as several pistols and rifles were fired at her. Chunks of the bulkhead flew off and the deck to her side sent up small sprays of slivers as the bullets hit. Chris crawled on her belly to the cover of the stairs to the bridge, and then she shot between the gaps in the steps.

With a bit of luck, the _Black Pearl _whipped around the _Titan_ and sailed away before the British could get more than one shot off of their other side. Since the _Pearl _had taken the majority of the fire, the _Tout de Suite_ and the _Blanco Muerte _were able to get away scot free. As soon as they were out of range of the _Titan_, Jack sent Marty and Chris below to inspect the damage. Chris had never before seen so much water in the _Pearl_'s brig. Immediately she went onto the pumps, shortly joined by Athos, and Marty went above to tell Jack they needed to make port so that they wouldn't sink. Jack signaled to the other ships, and using their charts of Africa, they sailed until they found a scrap of land with a cove that the _Black Pearl_ could beach herself at to make repairs that could keep her afloat until they found a port with a shipwright.

Chris continued working her pump until she heard a call from above to hold steady. Then, with a violent shudder, the entire ship vibrated awfully for about thirty seconds until she groaned to a halt. Looking through a porthole, Chris saw that the _Pearl_ had been beached. The pumps were abandoned for the water would leak from the holes in the hull in its own time and Chris returned to the deck of the ship just in time for Loki to screech and fall from the rigging onto her shoulder. "Well met, mate." Chris said, tenderly stroking her ape. Jack was walking to the port side from the bridge. Just as he grabbed a line that led down to the sandy beach below, he turned to Chris.

"I see he survived. Pity." Jack said, and Chris was startled to hear no teasing tone in his voice. Her brow furrowed.

"He can't help it if he has good judge of character." She replied, a scowl making lines on her face.

"I might remind you that _you_ used to wear dresses as well, Thomas." Jack replied.

"How did you even know I was talking about Isabella?" Chris replied. "I could have been talking about you!"

Jack's face screwed up into a mask of annoyance. "I would think about the character of those I've been behaving rather tenderly with if I were you, Chris."

What had even brought this about? Why was Jack acting so unkindly towards her? Sure, she was cantankerous at times, but never outright mean. "At least I know that Marak is interested in me and not whether or not I'm infamous." That blow struck home for Jack. His eyebrows rose up to his bandana and then dove back down as they furrowed.

"After the sails are replaced, I want you, and you alone, to swab all the decks. And think about just what it means to be the quartermaster of the _Black Pearl_ and whether or not you want to jeopardize it." With that, Jack zipped to the sand below.

Fury seethed through Chris' veins, and her lips twisted into a snarl. There was a large chunk of bulkhead on the deck, and Chris let out a yell and gave it a kick. The chunk of wood arched and flew over the port side of the ship and fell below. Her bare foot throbbed with pain, but she ignored it. Sometimes, Jack infuriated her so much! Loki let out a nervous chirp as Chris turned to head below and get the replacement sails for the yardarms.

As she did, she saw that Cotton and Marty had just surveyed the exchange between their captain and quartermaster. Cotton's Parrot let out a squawk and Loki's eyes narrowed. Chris breathed in deeply and tried to steady herself. Why did that exchange have such an effect on her? And why did Jack care if she and Marak were being sweet on each other? It wasn't like Marak was a dress-wearing poor excuse for a captain! Chris let out a long shuddering breath. "Can ye help me bring up the spare sails, mates?" She asked Cotton and Marty. They both nodded and the three humans, monkey, and parrot headed below.

As the sails were strung up, Marak climbed aboard the _Black Pearl_. "Halloa, Whiskey Girl." He greeted as Chris held the bottom of the current sail while Marty and Cotton pulled it up. Athos and Anamaria were atop the yardarms to secure said sail. Marak joined Chris in holding the sail. "Pleased to see you weren't hurt." He said as the sail was secured and he and Chris released the canvas.

"And you." Chris replied, turning to him. Though, honestly, there was never any risk of him being hurt since the _Pearl_ took all the fire. She smiled softly and said, "You'd probably be better suited returning to yer ship than staying here. I need to swab the decks when I'm done with this."

"I'll help." Marak offered. Cotton and Marty eyed him from their lines.

Chris' smile stayed in place. "No thanks. It's punishment." _Exactly why I'm being punished, I'm not wholly solid on_, she continued in her head.

"Well, Jack won't know. He, Gibbs, Giles, and my sister went inland to try and find some fresh wood to use for repairs. Probably won't be back for a while." Marak pressed.

Chris' smile sank into a line. "It's my punishment to bear, mate, not yours. But thanks."

"You know, the _Tout de Suite _could use someone like you if you ever get tired of Jack and his temperament." Marak mentioned casually, looking up at the smooth canvas of the sail.

Chris' line of a mouth turned into a frown and she saw Cotton and Marty shoot Marak a deathly glare from the corner of her eye. "I'd best get to swabbing." She replied curtly, and turned on her heel to head below and grab the swabbing supplies. Jack's temperament indeed! If he thought some insinuations were enough to break her loyalty to Jack, he was dead wrong. Even if Jack was acting more like a horse's ass in recent days…

It took two days to get the _Black Pearl_ back into sailing order and into the water once more, and it appeared that the _Titan_ had been unable to pursue them. The bowels of the ship were patched well enough until they could be tended to by a shipwright, the old sails had been patched, and wounds had been tended to. The plan was for the triad of ships to continue north until they arrived at Spain's Canary Islands. There the _Black Pearl_ would be repaired and the three ships would part ways. There was to be no more movements of sailors between the three ships to save time, and so that evening, Marak and Giles found themselves with the _Black Pearl_'s crew, telling jokes, singing songs, and drinking just a little. Marak had detected Chris' frostiness at his pressing of her to join the crew of the _Tout de Suite_, and so not another word about it was said and the two just tried to enjoy their company. Chris also had Loki stay behind in her cabin. She felt she didn't want to tempt fate when Isabella had also arrived with Giles and Marak. She was, of course, in the captain's cabin with Jack.

"I've got one, I've got one!" Athos announced as laughter from the previous jokes subsided. The subject was of their own profession: piracy. "What do ye say to a pirate with one leg?" He asked.

"What?" Gibbs asked.

"Hop aboard matey!" That earned a few guffaws, but not a roar of laughter like the previous yarn. Anamaria nonetheless linked her arm with Athos and Chris spotted their fingers intertwining. She grinned just as there was a loud bang from up on deck and then the sound of a hysterical female crying. All pirates below looked at each for a moment before rising and pounding up the stairs.

Marak was the first on deck with Chris following close behind. Isabella was bent over some of the splintered bulkhead. Her yellow dress matched the golden rays of the almost set sun, but her lovely face was streaked with tears and her red lips curved downward as she sobbed. The bodice of her dress was ripped from the chest down, showing her white chemise underneath. Marak crossed to his sister, whipping off his cloak and covering her modesty with it. "Bella? Bella, what's wrong?" He placed both hands upon her shoulders and looked into her face.

"Jack... He... He tried to..." She gasped, bringing two hands to rest on her heaving chest. The implications were immediately understood by all, and Marak's face flushed bright red. He left his sister and made a bee-line for the captain's cabin, his boots thumping furiously on the wood of the deck. The moment that Isabella's tone even suggested that Jack had tried to have his way with her, Chris immediately disbelieved it. She had known Jack for a number of years, and she knew that he liked his wenches. A blind person would know that about Jack, but never _ever_ would he do something as low down, as filthy, and as base as forcing himself upon a woman. He wouldn't even think the thought! Chris looked at Isabella as Marak left her and saw for a moment a satisfied smile and look passed onto her face before it once more became a distraught mask of sorrow.

"Marak, stop!" Chris kicked up her heels and reached Marak just as he arrived at Jack's door. She put a hand upon his shoulder and he whirled around with such intensity and ferocity that she could do nothing to stop it when his hands were immediately upon her.

"Get your hands off me!" Marak roared, throwing the woman away from him. The woman sailed back several feet, falling first on her rump and then her head shortly falling back onto the deck as well. She saw spots before her eyes and heard the cabin door open. It took her a few seconds before she realized that Marak had laid his hands upon her and made her fly a good few feet. Gibbs and Ragetti knelt beside her as she heard a blow land and a scuffle. She looked up to find Marak holding Jack by the shirt, his hand raised in preparation to hit Jack.

"Did you try to violate my sister?" Marak hissed, his eyes slits in his face. Jack looked defiantly at this man, his hands hanging at his side.

"I very much doubt anyone could ever violate your sister since she doesn't seem too keen on keeping her maidenhood!" Jack proclaimed, and there was a deep intake of breath from all on deck.

"Oh, _barnacles_." Cotton's Parrot croaked.

Marak let out a yell and his fist plummeted into Jack's face. Jack then raised his fists to bash Marak in the head. They both grabbed the other by the scruff of the neck and both did their best to harm the other. All those on deck watched, dead silent. "Gibbs, our captain." Chris said, and he helped her to her feet. She could not let this carry on anymore, and no one else was doing anything. "You get Jack, I'll get Marak."

The pair crossed to the brawling men, and Gibbs somehow put his arms underneath Jack's armpits and brought his hands to bear on the back of his head. With a great hoist, Gibbs pulled Jack away from Marak, but Marak lunged for the captain. Chris grabbed him about the waist, and using gravity and the weight of her bottom half, she pulled Marak down against the deck. His arms flailed wildly and as Chris tried to gain the upper ground and pin him by the shoulders, his fist smacked her across the face, sending her sprawling for the second time that night. This impact seemed to bring Marak to his senses as he looked upon the woman he had been veritably courting for the past week or so in a heap by the bulkhead. Pain pulsed across Chris' face, and as she looked up, she spied Isabella standing behind the crowd, her lips upturned in a triumphant smile. Anamaria joined Gibbs in trying to restrain her captain, who was still thrashing about.

A gunshot rang through the air as Giles materialized, his pistol raised. The entire deck fell silent and motionless. "All of ze sailors of ze _Tout de Suite_ and ze _Blanco Muerte_ back zeir ships, **now**!" He cried out. Immediately, men climbed down into the jolly boats that surrounded the _Pearl_, and soon they were paddling for the two ships anchored besides the ship. Giles crossed to Marak, who was still lying upon the deck and spat next to him. "Zat is not how we treat friends, Marak." Giles tone was cold and harsh and sounded foreign coming from this usually jolly captain. "Get to your feet and get back to the _Tout de Suite_ before I decide to maroon you!" Marak scrambled to his feet and crossed to his sister, who still bore tears upon her cheek. Giles crossed to Chris and helped her to her feet as Gibbs joined them. Giles looked at the first mate and quartermaster with nothing but sorrow upon his face. "I am so sorry." He said. "I zink both ze _Tout de Suite _and _Blanco Muerte _will take zeir leave tonight. It is for ze best, I zink." He sighed. "I am so sorry it has come to zis. May we meet again under more fortuitous circumstances." He placed a hand on both Gibbs' and Chris' shoulder and squeezed. "_Dieu vous bénit et vous garde, les amis_."

"_Et vous_." Chris replied in what French she still retained from her childhood lessons. Giles proffered a smile for the two sailors before turning and heading to the starboard side for the last remaining jolly boat. Marak was still on board and he looked upon Chris, his face like that of an apologetic child. Chris' kept her face an expressionless mask of stone and Giles turned to Marak and his sister. He said something Chris couldn't quite hear, but the three then disappeared over the side of the _Black Pearl_.

Jack shook himself from Anamaria's grasp. His face was red and already looking bruised from the hits he had taken. He turned to his crew. "We sail at first light." He announced. "Ye know yer watches." With that, he turned and entered his cabin, closing the door shut behind him.

"Are you alright, poppet?" Ragetti asked, crossing to Gibbs and Chris. A murmur rose among the crew as some headed below and others looked at Chris cautiously.

She felt her cheeks burn. "Yeah, Rags. I'm fine. Did he leave a mark?" She asked as nonchalantly as she could. Since she was quartermaster and veritable third-in-command, she needed to stay strong for the crew and to support Gibbs until Jack seemed steadier in his command than he did at present.

"It's a bit red upon your cheek." Ragetti said, indicating exactly where. Chris raised her hand to her cheek and felt the heat. She nodded sadly.

"We'd best get below." Gibbs said, trying to lighten things up. "I think there's still some rum left."

"I think I'll stay up here, mate." Chris replied. "I think I'm going to sit in the crow's next and think a bit."

"Don't do too much of it, now." Gibbs tried to joke, nudging her elbow. She managed a smile before heading to one of the lines. As she climbed to the crow's nest, the rest of the crew headed below to forget what had just occurred or to talk about it over a mug of rum. Once she slipped over the side of the crow's nest, she surveyed all below her and saw that the _Tout de Suite _and the _Blanco Muerte _had indeed begun to make sail. Chris watched as they slowly pulled out of the cove and then became smaller and smaller before finally vanishing in the darkness of fallen night.

Chris sat in the crow's nest and pulled her knees up so that she could rest her hands upon them. Her cheek no longer hurt from the blow, but inside she ached. Before Marak, the only two people she had ever fancied was Adam, her childhood friend, and Robert Dulligan, a boy her age that sailed with her aboard Torin Malloy's _Branwyn_. Robert was the only person she had ever kissed, but all fell apart shortly after when Torin retired and the crew broke apart. With the sudden romance she experienced with Marak, she had been excited and wanted so very much for it to be more than a few kisses and some kind words. Though a pirate, she was a woman after all, and she could want something more than the brotherly love she shared with her fellow sailors.

She sighed. Now all of that was gone. If only Jack had listened to her… This may not have happened. Besides, Isabella was so wrong for Jack. Not only was she a pirate who wore dresses, but she wasn't stuck at some port while Jack sailed away, enabling him to make merry with any other wenches he wanted. Chris knew monogamy wasn't his style. And if it ever would be, he needed someone made of sterner stuff than Isabella, and someone who didn't care whether or not he was infamous. Jack deserved something more, that Chris knew.

After a short time, Chris decided to head to bed. Loki was probably going mad from being pent up in the cabin alone, and she needed to get rest for the coming days, which would no doubt be challenging what with the need to make port and get the ship thoroughly repaired. She hit the deck on the bridge when she zipped down to the deck, and she could hear faint moans from underneath her feet. She climbed down the bridge's stairs and came to a halt just outside the captain's cabin. The moans she had heard came from within, and they sounded like the sounds of a dying animal. She was alarmed that perhaps Marak's punches had done more serious damage than the captain would want to admit, and so she opened the door and peered inside. Besides the usual litter of rum bottles on the cabin floor, there were bits of paper with the only discernible word being "Isabella" scrawled upon them as well. Jack was hunched over the chart table, rum bottle in one hand, paper in the other. Streaks of kohl and tears shined in the faint candle light.

Immediately, Chris was filled with fury. After everything that woman had caused on the ship that night! Not only had Jack been just about beaten to a pulp, but Chris wouldn't be surprised if she had a shiner the following day from Marak's fist. "Are you mourning the loss of that wench?" Chris entered the cabin and closed the door behind her with a snap. She could not keep the disdain from her voice.

Her captain's head snapped up. "Don't call her that! She is a lady!" Jack protested, letting out a hiccup.

"Shut yer gob. Lady indeed!" Chris spotted an empty burlap bag near a pile of Jack's dirty clothes. "Saying you tried to rape her sounds downright ladylike to me!" Chris grabbed bottles and crumpled papers from the floor and started stuffing them inside the bag.

"No! NO! Don' throw away Bella's poems!" Jack objected, standing from the table. His fist still contained one of these 'poems.' The woman glowered at the piece of paper as she crossed to her captain, wishing it would burst into flames.

"This is fer yer own good." Chris growled, wrenching the paper from his hand. She stuffed it into the bag. "Like ye would really have carried on a lasting relationship with a dressed up trollop like that anyway! There are many wenches in Tortuga who would beg to differ!" Her words were harsh, but she thought that her captain, one of her very best friends, needed to hear them. And besides, Chris wasn't one to preserve the feelings of others usually.

Jack retreated to his bed, drawing the curtains about it open. He collapsed backward into the rumpled sheets. "It was no use, Chris! I tried t' be a gentleman, for her. I wanted to be a gentleman and prove that she didn't just… That what you said about her on'y wanting to be wit' me for my infamy was false!" Chris stopped in her collection of the bottles and papers and looked at her captain, mouth open. He had actually listened to her? Jack sniffed hard. "She read them, laughed, and ripped 'em up! She said my chivalry didn't matter as long as I was Captain Jack Sparrow." He grabbed a bottle of rum from atop the head of the bed and took a gulp before wiping his sleeve across his face. "Ye were right. She just cared about me name. She didn't care about me. Which usually, I don't mind. But after ye said it…"

Chris' felt a sinking feeling within her chest. She was on some level satisfied that what she had said had turned out to be true, but to see her captain suffering from her actions… A lump materialized in her throat. She set the bag down with a clunk and crossed to the bed, sitting gingerly at the foot. "Jack, that's no reason for you to be so upset. You deserve so much better than her."

Jack looked up from where she laid. "I deserve something?" He asked, as though the idea was foreign to him.

"Lord, yes." Chris replied, leaning forward onto the bed. "Captain, if ye ever find a wench to settle down with, ye deserve one who wants to be with you because of you. Not some harlot who wants to be with ye since ye're the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow. Ye deserve a woman who's loyal to you, no matter if you do have a free way with the wenches, or sometimes drink a bit too much –"

"Watch it, Thomas." Jack warned, but a slight smile was upon his face.

"My point is," Chris continued over Jack, "You deserve a woman who will love you for you. That is what you deserve. You deserve a woman who loves Jack, not just Captain Jack Sparrow or the captain of the _Black Pearl_."

Jack looked at his quartermaster and his lips suddenly turned upward and his expression took the form of a student who already knew the answer to a lecture the teacher was giving. "Ye know, Chris, ye've always taken care o' me. Ye've always been there when I was too rummed up to walk or had some awful malady. Remember when more than half the crew got food poisonin' from that bad fish a couple years ago?" Chris nodded. "Ye were able to keep us sailin' with barely a handful of sailors _and_ye took care of us."

"Ye'd do the same for me." Chris said. "Plus, fish is disgusting." His disposition was lightening, so something Chris was saying was doing right by him. "I take care of my mates, it's what I do."

Jack went on, the smile still on his lips as he balanced the rum bottle by its neck on his chest. "And we're always bickerin' like some ol' married couple. Like yer brother and 'is lieutenant!"

"That's a charming comparison." Chris said, smiling wryly. Jack laughed.

"You could turn into a miniature me, like Gillette is for your brother. Ye just need the hair, the hat – One not as big as mine, o' course –"

Chris stopped him with a raised hand. "I think your first mate might find issue with that."

"Ah, well." Jack took a sip of his rum and returned it to his chest. "Remember when Malcolm took ye?" Chris nodded. How could she forget the encounter with her once future fiancée? "I thought me head was going to explode. I thought it was because ye wouldn't be 'round to take care o' me wound, and I was goin' to kick the bucket." Jack looked up at her. "But it wasn't that, Chris. The fact is... I was afraid that I'd have no one left to tease."

Chris' mouth opened and she said, "You sod!" She grabbed a paper she had missed from the floor and after crumpling it she threw it at Jack's face. He easily deflected it and then sat up, setting the rum back onto the headboard, and pulling himself down to the foot of the bed to sit with Chris. He took Chris' hand with uncommon tenderness and held it between his two larger hands. Chris felt a fluttering in her chest and realized it was her heart. She then realized something that she was sure Jack had realized: this woman Chris had been speaking of, this woman that Jack deserved could very well have been her. Was that why she had been so mistrusting of Isabella and critical of Jack's relationship with her? She then realized that yes, yes it was.

"I s'pose I've known for a long time, mate." Jack's voice became quiet. "I suppose I have known that I've been giving me kisses to the wrong women. I've been giving 'em to women who laugh behind me back instead of to me face. I've been givin' 'em to women who'd pass me by in the gutter, not stop an' help me up." One of Jack's hands rose to Chris' cheek. His thumb rubbed her cheek bone and he smiled. "I haven't been giving them to that one woman, the woman who, as you so cleverly put it, I deserve."

Chris did not dare to hope, though her heart begged to differ. Jack could just be teasing her. She could be imagining that she heard his heart pounding as well. "And who might that woman be?" Chris asked with very little breath.

Jack leaned in so that his chocolate eyes were level with Chris' sapphire ones. "It's you Chris. I don't know why I wouldn't admit it until now… But it's you." Chris let out a sigh of relief that no, he was not teasing her, he was not playing with her heart. She laughed and Jack smiled as he placed his other hand upon her cheek. He leaned in and his lips met Chris' without hesitancy in a kiss so tender that Chris became lost in the emotions that now tumbled through her chest. When their lips parted, Chris wished that they hadn't. Jack leaned his forehead against hers and asked, "So…What do you say to me courtin' you?"

oOo

You're on the phone with your girlfriend, She's upset  
She's going off about something that you said  
She doesn't get your humor like I do

I'm in my room, it's a typical Tuesday night  
I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like  
And she'll never know your story like I do

But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts  
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers  
Dreaming 'bout the day when you wake up and find  
That what you're lookin' for has been here the whole time

If you could see that I'm the one who understands you  
Been here all along so why can't you see?  
You belong with me  
You belong with me

Walkin' the streets with you in your worn out jeans  
I can't help thinking this is how it ought to be  
Laughing on the park bench thinkin' to myself  
Hey isn't this easy?

And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town  
I haven't seen it in awhile since she brought you down  
You say you find I know you better than that  
Hey, Whatcha doing with a girl like that?

She wears high heels, I wear sneakers  
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers  
Dreaming 'bout the day when you wake up and find  
That what you're looking for has been here the whole time

If you could see that I'm the one who understands you  
Been here all along so why can't you see?  
You belong with me

Standin' by, waiting at your back door  
All this time how could you not know that?  
You belong with me  
You belong with me

Oh I remember you driving to my house in the middle of the night  
I'm the one who makes you laugh when you know you're about to cry  
I know your favorite songs and you tell me about your dreams  
I think I know where you belong. I think I know it's with me.

Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you?  
Been here all along so why can't you see?  
You belong with me

Standing by or waiting at your back door  
All this time how could you not know that  
You belong with me  
You belong with me

Have you ever thought just maybe  
You belong with me  
You belong with me


	9. The Port of Granadilla

**Chapter Nine  
The Port of Granadilla**

The port of Granadilla was situated in the Spanish Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. While neither Jack nor Chris had the best track record with the Spanish, the _Black Pearl_ needed the touch of a proper shipwright before even daring to cross the Atlantic and return to the Caribbean. Also, this far away from the colonies, not many would know the pirate ship… Right?

The _Black Pearl_ was only able to make it to the fringes of the port's harbor because other ships that had wintered at Granadilla were already anchored within, causing any who hadn't been there for months to have to tender themselves to the actual port in jolly boats or dinghies. All of the ships were overgrown with barnacles, and already the smell of the filth of the port hung in the air. As the _Pearl_ reached the point where it could no longer sail safely, Jack called, "Lower anchor!" Those on the nearby ships began hanging off the bulkhead, shouting prices for any fresh food they carried and any alcohol that could be spared. Some even leaped into jolly boats and began rowing for the newly arrived ship.

"Aye!" Chris, Ragetti, Pintel, and Anamaria jumped to the capstan and released the anchor. There were several angry shouts from one of the jolly boats below as the anchor splashed into the water but, with a glance, Chris saw no one had died and left it alone. Jack walked by as she and the others secured the capstan so that the chain leading to the anchor was taught. Jack caught Chris' eye and winked before continuing to one of the jolly boats, and Chris smiled.

Chris and her captain had not been like one reads in a romantic novel (always with one another, never apart, lips never unlocked, etc.); on the contrary, it was a smile there, a wink here, and maybe a quick grazing of hands when no one was looking. Since she was quartermaster and he was the captain, neither wanted the crew to think that perhaps she was getting special consideration by the captain if anything ill arose. It turned out that Jack's standard of 'courting' wasn't much different than him teasing Chris, as he usually had, and so not much had changed except for some of the conversations the pair had in his cabin or when others were not around.

"Mr. Gibbs, Marty, and I will negotiate some repairs." Jack announced as he placed a hand upon the jolly boat. "Athos, Cotton, and Anamaria: ye choose some mates to stay behind, sell some of our extra food to those down there, and the rest of ye, bugger off!" With that, Jack's jolly boat was winched over the side and he, Marty, and Gibbs piled into it, as well as some other sailors seeking some shore leave.

Chris crossed to Anamaria and said, "If ye want, in my cabin is a small keg of whiskey and ye could sell it as well." Since the whole ordeal with Marak, she found that she didn't really have a thirst for whiskey anymore, and she hadn't cracked open the keg she received for Christmas yet anyway.

"And just what makes you think you're not going to be selected to stay behind?" Anamaria asked, arching an eyebrow. "Then you could sell it yourself."

"I'll tell you why." Chris said before kicking up her heels and leaping over the bulkhead into the already lowering jolly boat, landing right next to Pintel and Ragetti. Loki screeched in alarm from atop her shoulder and Chris' feet stung upon impact. The jolly boat shuddered precariously before steadying itself and Chris settled between Ragetti and an oar.

"Next time you want to dodge work, _Christiana_, I suggest you do something that doesn't have the potential to kill most of us and maim the rest." Jack called from his seat near the bow. Chris turned to him and bowed her head, bringing a knuckle to her brow.

"Aye, captain." Chris said very contritely. Pintel and Ragetti arched their eyebrows at Chris' compliance without her usual wisecrack or joke. The jolly boat hit the water and as the jolly boat was loosed from the ropes that lowered it, Chris picked up her oar and began to row in time with the others. Her friends also noticed this rather dutiful rowing, and the taller man whispered in the short man's ear before giggling and casting a look at Chris. "What's so funny?" She asked.

"Nuffink, nuffink at all." Ragetti replied, snickering. Chris cast an eye of suspicion on her friend, but continued rowing. Upon arriving in port, the jolly boat was beached and stowed right next to the piers until the sailors of the _Black Pearl_ would return for it. Chris placed her oar underneath one of the benches and with that, she Loki, Ragetti, and Pintel headed into the port of Granadilla.

Granadilla was a fairly small port. Most of the buildings were ramshackle shacks or wooden buildings, with very few being made of brick. The stink that could be smelled in the water hung over the town like a cloud. Since ports were usually overpopulated in the winter with little to no traffic in or out, the waste built up over the months, eventually creating such a stench, anyone who had not been there during the making of the filth was immediately overpowered by the stench.

Chris was no exception as she, her monkey, and her friends headed further into the port. "Ack! This stench is wretched." Chris covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve as they walked by a pile of refuse with flies buzzing over and maggots crawling underneath it. "Let's get into a tavern, quick." She bade.

"There!" Pintel announced, pointing to a wooden building that had a broken sign hanging out front. The pirates and monkey ducked inside to escape the stench outside. Upon entering, a wine bottle collided with the door frame and shattered. In alarm, Pintel and Ragetti pulled out their pistols and Chris brushed glass and wine off of herself and Loki, but there was no need for weapons. An enormous brawl was taking place in the tavern, and the sailors involved were haphazardly hurling objects at one another, but not at the three pirates and primate that entered. Pintel and Ragetti slowly holstered their weapons and the group searched out a place to sit.

The placed was rather crowded, and Chris noticed that besides a harassed-looking redheaded barmaid, she was the only female in the tavern. It seemed that a table full of men had also noticed as she and her mates squeezed by their table. Chris heard the phrase, "Plump bit of roast" right before she felt a rather large and grabby hand squeeze her buttocks. She whirled around and snatched the hand which was attached to a man with curly black hair, a strong chin, and a big dumb grin on his stubbled face.

With one smooth move, Chris pulled the man from his seat before kneeing him in the gut and then extending her leg into his groin. She released him and he doubled over and sank to the floor. Chris learned a long time ago to never take any guff from strange men in taverns unless she wanted to be hassled. "Would anyone else like to cop a feel?" She asked the man's table, cocking her head to the side.

One of the men rose, obviously not understanding that what Chris had just did to his friend would happen to anyone who took her up on her offer. One of the other men grabbed him and pulled him back down into his chair. "We're good, thanks." The man said. Chris smiled, stepped over the man upon the floor, and joined Ragetti and Pintel at a tale they had procured.

It was several minutes before the barmaid approached them, a tray with several mugs upon it in her hand. Her blue eyes were tired, and bags rimmed them, adding years onto her otherwise young face. "All we have is rum." She informed those at the table, setting a mug in front of each of the pirates. Ragetti went glossy eyed in his real eye as she gave him his mug and his cheeks turned a slight pink tint. "If ye have any complaints, leave." The barmaid finished, standing back and balancing the tray on her hip.

"There are none." Chris replied, handing her a few coins.

As the barmaid stuffed them in her apron pocket, Ragetti looked up at her; his eye still glossed over and said, "Ye know, I'm ninety-seven percent wood free."

Chris and Pintel looked at their friend, eyebrows arched as the barmaid smiled and asked, "What's the three percent?" Ragetti tapped the side of the eye socket that contained his wooden eye. The barmaid laughed and said, "If you need anything, I'll be tending to my other customers." She winked at Ragetti and then sashayed to the other side of the tavern, lifting the tray above her head as she went.

Ragetti watched her as she left, his face rapt with attention. Pintel and Chris looked at each other and snickered, taking sips from their rums. "Well, I will say this: that is one very fine looking strumpet."

"Don't call her a 'strumpet,' strumpet is rude." Chris said, remembering that Flynn had called her the term for a prostitute upon first seeing her. She had never forgiven the man, and she had never liked the term used around her.

"Fine, that's one fine looking wench."

"Better."

Ragetti didn't react to any of this. "Rags?" Pintel leaned over the table and waved his hand in front of his mate's face. "'ello? Anyone home?" Ragetti didn't move. Pintel snapped his fingers a few times before smacking Ragetti upside the head. Ragetti's wooden eye popped out and plunked into his cup of rum. That got his attention.

"Me eye!" Ragetti hand dove into the rum, sending it sloshing over the side of the mug as he retrieved his eye. He held it before his face in victory before shaking the excess alcohol from it and then wiping it off on his trousers. He popped in back into his head and winced in pain as any remaining alcohol on the wooden eye was absorbed into his socket. Once the alcohol had been absorbed, his face when back to normal and his focus was back on the barmaid. "That lass is the prettiest barmaid I ever did see wif me eyes, wooden or no!"

"Fair, yes, the prettiest, I don't know." Pintel said, rubbing his beard. "I'm not so certain about yer taste in barmaids. If I recollect right, didn't you fancy a bearded barmaid one lonely night in Tortuga?"

"What bearded barmaid in Tortuga?" Chris asked, her eyebrows raised. She had seen a lot of things in Tortuga, but a barmaid sporting facial hair was not one of them.

"He's teasing. Ye're teasing, Pinters!" Ragetti looked down at his mug of rum and raised it to his lips. "'Sides, you only put on that dress for a laugh." Chris then had to intervene to stop Pintel from choking the life out of Ragetti.

"You said you'd never say a word!" Pintel hissed as his thick fingers reached for Ragetti's thin neck. Chris put one hand against Pintel's face and the other against Ragetti's chest for balance.

"Calm down, now calm down!" Chris hollered. She finally gave Pintel a good shove and he sat back down on his chair heavily. Loki paced Chris' shoulders in agitation as Ragetti eyed his friend cautiously and Chris looked between them both. "Now I know that my opinion may not be worth much, but Pintel… If ye ever feel the need to dress up again, we could have some fun, you and me." This was followed by both Ragetti and Chris leaping over tables to get to the door before Pintel could get his hands on them. Chris just couldn't help herself, and now as she saw Pintel's beet red face and his burly physique plowing through chairs with people still in them, she wondered if she had pressed him too far. Loki screeched in alarm and clung to the hair attached to Chris' scalp as though he was mortally afraid what would happen to him if he fell off Chris and into Pintel's path. As soon as she and Ragetti got to the door, it banged open and they dispersed into the port of Granadilla, leaving Pintel to do nothing but only guess where they had gone to.

The sound of hammers pounding below woke Chris from her sleep the next day. She knew that Marty had checked out the only shipwright in Granadilla along with Jack and declared his work fit, and she knew that the _Pearl_ would be repaired; she just didn't figure it would start so early. She moaned into her pillow and slunk from her bed, clad only in a shirt. As she went behind her screen, she was greeted by the face of a man in her window. Their mouths both dropped in shock and the man hurriedly signaled 'Up' to someone above. "Wait right there, sailor!" Chris called, pulling the porthole open. She grinned and said, "I wager ye didn't look in this all that time just to see the wrong side of me screen, now did ye?" The man's eyes widened and he shouted above to halt the raising. Chris grinned and leaned forward, her left hand fiddling with the collar of her shirt. "Come closer, mate." The man was sitting upon a sling that had been thrown over the side of the ship, and now he leaned his entire head into the porthole, his eyes looking eagerly upon Chris' legs that were bare from the top of her thighs downward. "There we are."

Chris fiddled with her collar some more, keeping the man's eyes on her left hand as it went to release the first button. Meanwhile, she pulled her right hand back into a fist and brought it crashing into the man's nose. He jerked backwards out of the porthole and lost his seating upon his sling. He exclaimed in terror as he wind-milled his arms, trying to regain his balance to no avail. He toppled into the water and Chris stuck her head out of the porthole, watching as he surfaced spluttering and coughing. She craned her head upwards to find several of the shipwright's men on the main deck peering down. "Let that be a lesson to **all of you** about looking in portholes ye shouldn't!" With that, Chris pulled her head back into her cabin, battened down the porthole, and pulled on a pair of trousers.

She soon left her cabin after plucking Loki from her headboard and headed above. "What's with the peeping Toms?" Chris asked as she entered the galley moments later. The only other occupants were Cotton, Anamaria, Athos, and Jack.

"Peeping Toms?" Jack asked, scratching his chin. "I don't remember asking any of those aboard. There's only room fer me on this ship." He grabbed a banana from the ceiling and grinned. Chris smiled sardonically at her captain, and he winked. "Most of the work is done already. The shipwright 'ad a lot o' sailors willin' to work, and Marty's not too bad with his repairs. I just need to go and pay the shipwright his due while Anamaria and Athos round up the rest. That is, if they don't get _distracted_." That set Athos to blushing and Anamaria to scowling. "Anyhow, I'd feel more comfortable if I had someone come with me, and since Gibbs is already ashore, how about I bring me quartermaster?"

Chris plucked a banana from the ceiling as well. "Aye, captain." The two (Loki with) soon boarded a jolly boat and rowed themselves ashore with not many words between them. Even in times like this when they appeared to be alone they didn't dare to do anything that could be construed as romantic, what with keeping up appearances and all that. After tying their jolly boat up at the docks, they went to the same tavern with the broken sign that Chris had visited the day before. The aforementioned shipwright was sitting at a table near the front alone. He was just a breath away from being elderly and appeared to have fewer teeth in his skull than colorless strands of hair upon his head.

"Ah, Captain Sparrow." He creaked, his voice as dry as a weathered and ancient hull, "I see you're punctual. And ye've brought a wench." He grinned a gaping smile at Chris. "How are ya, missy?" She kept her face expressionless.

"Indeed, Mr. Boa. Me crew and I wish to get back to the Caribbean." Jack did not sit; instead he pulled a rather sizable leather pouch from his belt. It jingled as Jack set it upon the table. "Your payment, as agreed, of three hundred and fifty pieces of Spanish silver."

Boa took the bag and weighed it in his hands, his eyes still focused upon Jack. "I thought we agreed on five hundred." He rasped.

"_You_ may have agreed on five hundred, Mr. Boa, but my carpenter, myself, and as I recall, your foreman, agreed on three hundred and fifty after your examination of my ship." Jack replied, standing his ground.

"The work my men did on that _boat_," Jack looked like he had been slapped across the face as Boa referred to the _Pearl_ as a boat, not a ship, "Cost me more than five hundred. You should be lucky that's all I'm charging you, so cough it up, cabin boy."

Chris could see that this wasn't going to end well if she let this continue. Jack's mouth was opening, probably to fling an insult, when she stepped in. "Three hundred and fifty is all ye're getting. I think we ought to be heading back, captain."

"That so?" Boa stood, tucking the pouch into his belt, and announced to the whole tavern, "This swine is fixing to rob me! Get him!" Nothing happened except all in the tavern turned to look at the old shipwright. Chris expected as much; she knew if some old man suddenly declared he was being robbed in a tavern at Tortuga after accepting a pouch of coin, she wouldn't exactly spring into action to defend him.

"What ye fixin' at, old man?" One man asked, snorting with laughter at the ridiculous request the shipwright had made.

"This is what I'm fixin' at." Boa replied. "I'll pay one hundred pieces of Spanish silver to the man who kills him… And his girl here!" Chris' eyes widened as the situation went from sticky to downright bogging.

"Oh bollocks." Jack grabbed Chris' arm, Loki shrieked, and the pirate captain pulled the woman and the ape over the bar as several weapons were unsheathed and pistols were fired. Bottles of alcohol that sat upon shelves above the bar shattered and Jack, still holding Chris' arm, dragged her through an open door into the back room of the tavern just as men with swords and knives rounded the ends of the bar. As soon as they were in the room, Jack slammed the door shut and threw himself against it.

The back room had several shelves with bottles of alcohol lining them, bags of flour on the floor, and kegs lining the room. As Chris scooted a keg over to the door so that Jack wouldn't have to brace himself against it, she noticed that there was a door leading to a small poorly constructed pantry. As she scooted the keg into place, the pantry door opened and Ragetti walked out, tucking his shirt tails in. Upon seeing Jack and the quartermaster, his face flushed pink and he exclaimed, "Captain! Whatchoo and Chris doin' here?"

"Being shot at." Chris responded as several bullets were embedded into the other side of the door. She and Jack leaped away from said entrance and Chris turned to Ragetti. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Ragetti looked flustered. "Um…" He giggled and the barmaid bumped into him trying to vacate the pantry, buttoning the front of her dress. She saw that she and Ragetti were no longer alone and clapped a hand to her mouth, her cheeks flushing red.

Chris's jaw dropped and she and Jack looked at each other. "…Rags... You were getting all hands with the barmaid… In the pantry!" She pointed accusingly, overwhelmed with disbelief and a bit of pride.

"That's where people get their food!" Jack said, looking slightly squeamish at the thought. "I mean, I don't 'xactly have high standards, mate, but good God! And you!" He pointed to the barmaid, "This is your place of employ! You're a barmaid and you're supposed to keep things clean!"

Ragetti's face flushed an even deeper color of crimson. "Her name is Sarah!" Their chat was interrupted as those on the other side of the door began to do their best to break it down.

"We'll continue this discussion later young man!" Jack pointed at his sailor and then looked about, his eyes landing on the only window the room contained. Jack made a decision quickly. "Rags, grab your lass, we'll break out the window and escape!"

"What's the matter?" Ragetti asked, eyes going wide.

"Grab me?" Sarah interrupted, finishing buttoning her dress.

Chris crossed to the window, picked up a bag of flour, and hurled it through the panes of glass. It shattered in a tremendous spray of broken glass. Loki chattered in alarm as she plucked out any remaining shards of glass so that the pirates, barmaid, and monkey wouldn't knick themselves on the way out. "Unless ye want to be dead, Sarah, I suggest you come with us!"

Not needing to be told twice, Ragetti grabbed Sarah's hand and climbed through the window, helping Sarah through after him. Chris climbed through after them, hunching over so Loki wouldn't get clocked by the top of the sill, and turned to offer her hand in aid to her following captain. Just as his torso was hanging out the window, Chris heard the door burst off its hinges. "Jack!" She cried, pulling him the rest of the way out the window just as gunshots went off. There was a spray of red and all the sudden Jack was writhing on top of Chris, who had fallen to the ground. "What happened?" Chris question.

"They shot me! They shot me! Ah God, me poop deck!" Jack cursed, writhing in pain. "Oh, sodding, spitting, limy _Hell_!"

"Bollocks!" Chris pulled Jack and herself to their feet. She slung Jack's arm about the shoulder without Loki and the four humans and monkey loped down towards the entrance of the alley that they had entered via the window. Chris looked at Jack's backside and saw that, indeed, there was a bloody hole in one of his buttocks.

"Agh!" Jack moaned in pain, "Can't ye carry me?" He was hobbling furiously and Chris noticed he was leaving a nice trail of blood behind him.

"Let's just get back to the ship, captain!" Chris bade.

"There's no need." Chris looked up to see that the man that had pinched her behind the day before was blocking the alley, hand on sword and grin on face.

"_Oh bollocks_!" Chris cursed. She didn't regret teaching the man a lesson, but now she thought maybe she shouldn't have kicked him so hard. She looked behind her, where Sarah and Ragetti were hanging back, and saw that there was a wooden fence about six feet high between the tavern and the building on the other side of the alley. It would take some doing to get Jack over that, not to mention Ragetti and Sarah. They were blocked in.

"I promise ye, if ye come along quietly, I'll kill the bloke without fuss… But I may make an exception with you, missy." He laughed, stepping further into the alley. "Pay ye back for the kindness ye showed me, lass."

Her lips straight in a defiant line, Chris unsheathed Jack's sword and brandished it. "How about no, you mangy cur?"

The man smiled. "I'm going to teach ye a lesson ye'll not forget, lass." He unsheathed his sword as well. "I promise, the bite of this sword isn't the only thing ye'll be getting from Black Bart before this is over."

"You named your sword, eh?" Chris asked, still supporting Jack. "That's adorable." She was trying to figure out how they could get out of the alley without resorting to swordplay, but it didn't look like that was going to happen.

The man scowled. "It's **my** name, and ye're going to be screaming it before the day is over." Black Bart growled. He lunged for Chris, but she pulled herself and Jack to the side. Black Bart charged through, barely missing Sarah and Ragetti as they split apart.

"Run! Get the jolly boat ready to launch and we'll be there shortly!" Chris commanded. Ragetti grabbed Sarah's hand and they fled as Black Bart rounded on Chris once more.

"Chris, ye do know I'm still here, right?" Jack asked from her arm.

"Must have slipped my mind!" Chris muttered, the sword in her hand raised. She wished she had her rapier.

Black Bart's sword was still raised as he began to circle the woman and man. "I can't wait to make you squirm." He spat before lunging once more. Chris released Jack, he fell to the ground with a shout of anguish, and as Black Bart's sword swooped towards her, Chris dodged and chopped at his hand. What happened next astounded her. Not only did she hit Black Bart's hand at the wrist, but she cut clean through and his hand, still holding the sword, fell to the ground. "AAAAAAAAUGH!" Black Bart screamed. He clutched his now bleeding stump and sank to his knees in pain. "My hand! _MY_ _HAND_!"

Chris hauled Jack to his feet. "Let's get the Hell out of here!" She said unnecessarily and the last time she looked into the alley, she saw men tumbling out the window and Black Bart screaming uncontrollably as he clutched his bleeding stump. When Jack and Chris made it to the pier, Ragetti and Sarah were already in the jolly boat, oars out. Chris lowered Jack in first before leaping in and using her body to shove the jolly boat from the pier. She then plucked up an oar and began rowing with Ragetti and Sarah.

Upon arrival to the _Black Pearl_, Jack called up to Gibbs and Pintel, who were winching them up, "Get everyone who is not a crewmember off my ship **now**! Let out all sails and let's get the Hell out of this port!"

The first mate seemed more concerned with another matter. "Ye're bringin' another woman on board?" Jack scowled at him, and his mind went back to the matter at hand. "But captain, if we make sail while we winch you up –" Gibbs objected.

"I don't care, and you shouldn't either if you want another Malcolm-esque pursuit!"

Sarah protested. "I need to get back to shore! My job's here, my life's here—"

"Lass, do ye _really_ think that men such as Black Bart are going to be forgiving of ye for aiding and abetting our escape?" Chris asked, an eyebrow raised. Loki cocked his head to the side as if to chip in, "Yeah, _really_?"

Sarah scowled and fell silent. Once the jolly boat was aboard, Chris helped Jack from the small vessel and up to the bridge. He leaned on the wheel for support, Chris continued to make sail with the other pirates as any of the shipwright's remaining men were unceremoniously dumped overboard, and within half an hour, the _Black Pearl_ had left Granadilla behind. The repairs on the ship made her sail faster than she had in a good long while, and Chris felt that they didn't need to worry about anyone pursuing them.

She returned from the top and as she approached the wounded man at the wheel she said, "Captain, we need to get that bullet out of you." Jack had turned a pallid, ghostly color and he nodded. Cotton took the helm and Gibbs helped his captain down to his cabin while Chris retrieved some hot water from the galley, a small cake of soap, a rag, and the small bag she used in first aid cases. When she had sailed on the _Branwyn_ many years ago they usually wintered in pirate ports. During the winter, she would help any surgeons or doctors found there for a few extra shillings and to learn enough to patch herself or her mates up if she ever needed it. Pirates weren't exactly renowned for keeping doctors aboard, so Chris served not only as quartermaster but as a very rudimentary doctor when the time came. She knew that the lead in Jack had turned him the color of death, and if she didn't get it out soon, they'd have more serious things to worry about. Before ducking back into the cabin, she also obtained a fresh bottle of rum for her captain and his wound.

Gibbs left the cabin once Chris entered to give Jack some privacy. The captain lay upon his stomach on his bed and she gave him the bottle of rum before attempting anything else. It was with no small amount of color to her cheeks that Chris pulled Jack's trousers off and began to cleanse his wound with warm water. "Like what you see, love?" Jack asked, leering over his shoulder. Chris, though a woman of more than twenty years, had never seen an unclothed man before, except in instances were sorry louts had exposed their rather unimpressive selves to her for jollies. So now seeing her captain's and new beau's bare backside was a first for the woman. After cleansing the bullet hole with soap and water, she pulled a pair of tweezers from her medical bag.

"This is going to sting." She warned her captain before dipping the nose of the tweezers into the wound and feeling about for the piece of lead.

"Ow! Bloody Hell! Can ye be a bit gentler?" Jack asked, throwing her a dirty look behind his shoulder.

"Maybe." Chris pushed the nose in deeper until it hit some hard.

"_Ow_! Blimey pus-spewing _HELL_!"

Chris ignored this colorful string of curses and pulled the tweezers up just a bit. She opened the instrument and lowered it back into the wound. She closed the tweezers once she felt that they were snug around what Chris presumed was the bullet. As she extracted the tweezers, Jack let out a string of curses that she certainly would have never imagined saying and she plunked the bullet into her hand. The bullet had some cloth attached to it, probably from Jack's breeches. She peeled the cloth from the lead and said, "Ye'll stitch up nicely, Captain." She reached for the bottle of rum he held and pulled it from his grasp. She poured the rum into the wound and more curses came tumbling out of Jack and he pounded his headboard with his fist.

"Ye know, for a girl who always seems to have my back when things look the worst, ye seem to cause a lot more pain when all is said and done." Jack commented as Chris threaded her needle and sterilized it in the rum before handing the bottle back. As Chris began to sew her captain up, he groaned in pain. "See?" He asked once he became accustomed to the rhythm of Chris' needle. "And even with us courtin', ye still don't make an effort to make it any gentler."

"I'm just trying to get ye sewed up so ye can get yer pants back on, captain." Chris said, shaking her head. "Speed and efficiency is more important than a few extra spasms of pain."

"Next time ye're shot, I'll say the same." Jack replied. "And what's this about me gettin' my pants back on?" Jack turned so that the upper half of his torso and his face was directed at Chris. She kept her eyes upon his face as he said, "Shouldn't ye be doin' somethin' to comfort me?"

Chris poked him with a needle a bit rougher than was warranted. "I won't be doin' any comfortin' of the sort ye're thinkin' of anytime soon, Sparrow. Now hold still or I may just decide to practice my embroidery skills."

Just as Jack's pants were pulled back up, there was a knock on the door. Upon Jack's bidding, Gibbs and Ragetti entered. "All clothed, eh?" Gibbs asked. Chris' eyebrow arched and Jack smiled.

"Just the trousers were removed, by the very able hands of Chris – Ahh!" Jack jerked as Chris stuck him with her needle. "Woman! Put that thing away!"

Gibbs and Ragetti smiled at each other as Chris replaced her needle. "If you aren't… exerted, perhaps you'll be able to helm your ship?" Gibbs asked.

"Exerted? Gibbs, I may have been shot, but I haven't been hauling anchor or raising sails."

Gibbs and Ragetti snickered and Chris looked at her captain. "Gibbs, answer me: Just what in the bloody Hell are you laughing at?"

Gibbs looked to Ragetti and said, "Well, you and Chris have grown rather close since that whole incident with Isabella and Marak."

"And we heard the pounding of the headboard." Ragetti added. Gibbs shot him a look that plainly said he went too far.

Chris clapped a hand over her eyes and let it slowly slide down her face. "Sparrow, you could not keep your mouth shut."

"It was quite shut, Chris – Hang on." Jack turned to the two sailors and asked, "Are ye alluding that we're…" He made a gesture with both of his hands as though he were compacting something together, "Or that we're courting?"

Gibbs and Ragetti looked at each other. "Well… the first one." Ragetti admitted. Chris pressed her lips together so tight it was as if there was no horizontal opening on her face at all. The hands that held her medical bag shook.

Jack saw this, so he quickly decided to defuse the situation. "Ye're wrong. Chris and I are just courtin' that's all. Not like I haven't tried, but Chris is kind of stubborn in that regard." Chris shot Jack a look that would have curdled milk in the udder. "But of course, she is too morally upstanding to give into a cad like me." Jack said quickly.

"Captain, ye should have known better than to keep it from us. There are no secrets upon a ship, after all." Gibbs said, a sly smile upon his lips.

"Silly me." Jack said, casting a sidelong glance at Chris. "Now, why did ye all come in besides the fact that ye're a bunch of perverts?"

Gibbs laughed and said, "We don't know what to do about Sarah."

"I can't keep me eye on her every minute what wif watches and such." Ragetti explained.

Jack and Chris looked at each other and Chris said, "She can stay in my cabin during the voyage."

"Since you'll be in here?" Gibbs asked, smiling widely.

Chris gritted her teeth. "Gibbs, I know you're first mate, but so help me God, you keep this up and I will clobber you with a belaying pin one night when you least expect it."

Gibbs' smile left his face. "Apologies, Chris."

Jack grinned. "Alright, that settles that, now let's go home!"

oOo

When you feel all alone  
And the world has turned its back on you  
Give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart  
I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you  
It's hard to find relief and people can be so cold  
When darkness is upon your door and you feel like you can't take anymore

Let me be the one you call  
If you jump I'll break your fall  
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night  
If you need to fall apart  
I can mend a broken heart  
If you need to crash then crash and burn  
You're not alone

When you feel all alone  
And a loyal friend is hard to find  
You're caught in a one way street  
With the monsters in your head  
When hopes and dreams are far away and  
You feel like you can't face the day

Let me be the one you call  
If you jump I'll break your fall  
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night  
If you need to fall apart  
I can mend a broken heart  
If you need to crash then crash and burn  
You're not alone

'Cause there has always been heartache and pain  
And when it's over you'll breathe again  
You'll breath again

When you feel all alone  
And the world has turned its back on you  
Give me a moment please  
To tame your wild wild heart

Let me be the one you call  
If you jump I'll break your fall  
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night  
If you need to fall apart  
I can mend a broken heart  
If you need to crash then crash and burn  
You're not alone


	10. The Bermuda Triangle

**Chapter Ten  
The Bermuda Triangle**

Upon their return to the Caribbean, the _Black Pearl_ anchored in Tortuga not only to get the lay of the seas and the news on what had happened over the winter, but they also found Sarah a job at the Faithful Bride tavern. She seemed rather pleased with the new scenery and the fact that this tavern was more forgiving towards barmaids who wouldn't put up with the harassment of patrons. Ragetti, on the other hand, was rather glum and distressed to say goodbye to his bonnie lass, but after a few days out of port, he was back to normal, and so the ship returned to the plundering and raiding of merchant ships.

One evening as the sun began its descent, Athos let out a holler from the crow's nest. Chris was the officer on watch, so she left Anamaria at the helm and climbed up to the top to see just what the fuss was about. She climbed over the side of the crow's nest and asked, "What's up?"

Athos pointed to the southeast horizon. Even without a long glass, Chris could see that dark, leaden clouds were piled high upon the horizon, no doubt concealing some nasty storm. And it just so happened the southeast was where the _Pearl_ was heading. "I thought the captain should know." Athos said. "If only to plow headfirst with the knowledge of those clouds."

Chris nodded, watching a lightning bolt probe from the clouds as she did. Loki let out a wavering chirp of worry. "I'll let him know, mate. Thanks." With that, Chris grabbed a line and zipped down to the deck, landing to the side of Anamaria. "Athos spotted a wicked-looking storm on the horizon. I'm going to tell the captain."

"Mmhmm." Anamaria said, wiggling her eyebrows at Chris. Chris pursed her lips and licked her teeth at the other woman. Ever since word got out that the captain and the quartermaster were courting, every single action that either pirate took that would entail them being alone with the other was met by patronizing expressions and insinuating phrases. "Go tell the captain about the rough waters we're sure to encounter."

Chris rolled her eyes. _Lord, pirates, I swear…_ "Keep a steady bearing." She said before heading down the stairs and knocking upon the captain's cabin door. Upon approval, Chris entered, leaving the door open. "Athos has spotted some dangerous looking storm clouds to the southeast, captain." She said, belaying any greeting. "We're heading right for them, and they certainly do look wicked.

Jack was sitting at his chart navigation table with said maps laid out before him. He looked up at his quartermaster and set the sextant he had been using down. "We need to continue with that heading in time to intercept that sugar ship that's leaving the Barbados." He raised a finger to his chin, "But if we go through an awful storm, we might miss it anyway." Chris stayed silent as her captain tapped his chin in thought. "What did the weather look like elsewhere?"

Chris chewed her lip in thought. "Clear." She replied. "Nothing like to the southeast."

Jack nodded. "We'll change course due south and then later change it to northwest, and we should be good. Go ahead and give the orders." Chris nodded and went to exit the cabin as Jack asked, "Come to my cabin after dinner?"

Chris smiled softly and nodded. Jack mirrored her smile, and the quartermaster left to give the orders for the new bearing. As the sun sank, the sea became choppy and a brisk wind blew. By sundown, bolts of lightning gutted the sky, and the _Black Pearl_ bucked against the frothing waves. Chris did not understand at all. The sky had been crystal clear as the sun went down, and now it was as if they had still sailed into the very storm they had tried to avoid. The bucking of the waves and the howling of the wind became so intense that Jack ordered the sails to be taken in and all the hatches battened down and, finally, everyone inside. He said the _Pearl_ would have to ride out the seas without the aid of her sailors.

Later in the galley that night as the pirates ate cold burgoo, Jack turned to his quartermaster, "Lemme tell ye Chris, I'm so glad we chose this course instead of southeast. I mean, just imagine what those storm clouds held if this is what lies behind a clear sky." Jack jested as he ate the last of his burgoo.

"It's not me fault that Neptune decided to mess with our heads, captain." Chris replied calmly. "Next time a good lad like Athos spots something questionable on the horizon, maybe I should just leave it be so we can go out in half-arsed drunken glory?"

Jack grinned and winked at Gibbs beside him. "I'll drink to that." He raised his mug and took a long gulp out of it.

By dawn, whatever manner of weather that the _Pearl_ had sailed into had steadily worsened. No one had slept for fear of the ship capsizing, and Jack gathered Gibbs, Anamaria, and Chris to venture forth onto the deck and see if they could coax the ship through the storm to calmer waters. When the small group plunged from the safety of the forecastle onto the deck, they were met with gale force winds. Anamaria's bandana whipped off of her head and flew away. Jack scanned the horizon with his long glass, seeing clouds in every direction save south. It seemed that south had been the correct direction all along.

"Set course for the south so we can get out of this Hellish storm!" Jack ordered above the roar of the wind and the slapping of the sea against the hull. He slipped and lurched to the wheel, almost falling from the stairs on his ascent. The other three raced to their complimentary positions, loosing the sails but keeping them taught, and doing their best to keep the _Black Pearl_ from capsizing in this wicked weather.

Chris had never seen a storm this rough, even though she had sailed through half a dozen hurricanes in her pirating years. Though the storm fought back, the _Black Pearl_ slowly made its way from the tempest's clutches. Chris had to use every ounce of her strength to keep her place in the rigging as she tightened the sails, which were ready to rip from the winds.

The _Pearl _slowly but surely made her way into calmer waters, even with fraying lines and ripping sails. As the _Black Pearl_ was suddenly free from the squall, something immensely odd happened. Everything slowed down to a standstill. Chris felt queasy and had to grab onto a yardarm to stay upright. There was a loud ticking noise, and everything around her faded into different colors. Last of all, there was a loud sound like someone pulling a boot out of thick mud, and suddenly, everything was as it was supposed to be. Chris shakily climbed down to the deck, her nausea fading away, and blinked in the sudden warm sunlight. Jack barked out several orders, the only line that Chris was able to catch was, "...before we get sucked into that Hell again, sail far and fast!" Sailors from below filed onto the deck but all were stunned to see that behind them was only a single cloud that seemed to pulsate with a green light.

"That does not bode well." Chris heard Gibbs say as the crew looked upon the strange cloud. "Something odd's happened, no doubt about that. We'd best be on guard."

After sailing far away from the strange cloud, the _Pearl_'s anchor was dropped and the crew went about the matter of taking down the damaged sails and running up the spares. Jack was still trying to decipher where the _Pearl_ had ended up on his charts while Chris, Anamaria, Pintel, and Ragetti took down the ripped sails and raised the spare ones, Athos kept watch, Marty and Cotton set about cleaning up the galley, and the rest of the crew went about replacing snapped lines and trying to put everything back into its proper place. As Chris and Anamaria began to run up the last sail, there was a shout from the crow's nest.

"There's a ship on the western horizon!" Athos shouted in alarm. Gibbs ran to get Jack from his cabin, and once they appeared upon deck once again, Jack pulled out his long glass and surveyed the west. To the naked eye, one could see the puffy black sails of the ship, which was odd. Chris had never seen a ship besides the _Black Pearl_ sport black sails.

Jack pulled the long glass from his eye. "It has pirate colors, but it may fire on us anyway." He then bellowed. "All to arms! Do not fire except upon my order, we don't know exactly what they want!" There was a scramble as pirates clambered into the hold and the top. Chris pulled the chest of boarding weapons onto the deck and strapped on her rapier. All aboard waited to see what would happen with bated breath. The ship finally drew near enough so that Chris could discern the details.

The lettering of the ship was so faded Chris could not read it, but she could see that it had begun with the letter 'D.' The shape looked familiar, but then again, not every ship was different from the other. The sails were indeed black, and the rigging was strung with pirates brandishing swords and pistols. The ship sailed until the two ships were broadside, at which point the captain of the ship emerged from below. The captain was bearded, filthy, and sported very long brown hair and a large tricorn. He brandished his sword in the air and then pointed it at those upon the deck of the _Black Pearl_. "You are weak, you are defenseless, you have no chance, so surrender now and we shall gladly take what we can with no expense of lives!" The captain shouted. His crew cheered. The captain's voice was familiar and set an alarm off inside Chris' head. Why was it so familiar?

Jack, of course, would never be swayed by words. "Over our dead bodies!" The captain declared, his hand straying to his pistol. "But, if ye have any malt liquor, we'd be happy to barter with you."

"Wait one minute... Sparrow, is that you?" The captain pulled out a collapsible long glass and surveyed the deck. As he did, Chris' breath caught in her throat and she immediately knew why the man's voice was familiar. This captain was no nondescript man, but behind the Jack-esque clothes, the filth, and the long brown hair, Chris recognized her brother Commodore James Norrington! He wasn't even wearing a wig! And just how fast could that man grow his hair? Good Lord!

"James, what the bleedin' Hell are you doin' dressed like that?" She asked, her mouth opened in shock and her face slightly revolted. Was this a ruse to lure pirates into a false sense of security?

Norrington did a double take and sheathed his sword. "Is this another of your tricks, Admiral Sparrow?" He asked, cocking his head to the side. "Making the _Black Pearl_ appear to be a wounded ship – with black sails, mind you! That's the _Dauntless_' signature – and bringing my beloved half-sister with you? I wager you'll be wanting to blow me to slivers right in front of her oh-so-innocent eyes! Not that you'd mind, _Christiana_."

Chris was entirely and utterly perplexed. Just what was Norrington's game? Jack seemed to wonder the same. "What's this 'Admiral' nonsense, Commodore? Ye're the one who's playin' tricks! I admit I vomited in me mouth when I saw how poncy ye look without the wig and Navy clothes. Might I remind you about our agreement from many months ago about ye botherin' the _Pearl_?"

Norrington's eyes flashed and he looked to Gibbs. "Lieutenant Gibbs, has your captain been drinking? You'd best keep him from the rum in the future; it makes him even more stupid than before!" Jack and Gibbs' mouths dropped open. Norrington drew his sword once more. "Now, kindly get my sister somewhere safe, so when I blow your ship apart, I can still rescue her and hold her for a ransom from her fiancée."

Jack looked at Chris and then back at Norrington. "Just what the **BLEEDIN' HELL **is going on?" Norrington cackled with laughter and the silence was broken by the firing of several guns, too numerous and large to be the _Black Pearl_'s. At first, Chris thought Norrington's ship had fired upon the _Pearl_, but they saw another ship, closing in fast, firing on Norrington from swivel guns affixed to their bow.

"Ambush!" Norrington cried out. "So, it was a trick, Sparrow! You shall die for this, but not before I!" With that, Norrington barked several orders and his ship sailed away faster than the attacking ship was gaining. Norrington ran to the stern of the ship and hung off of it, brandishing his sword and calling just before the _Pearl_ was out of earshot, "See you in Hell, Sparrow!" With that, the man sheathed his sword, turned, and dropped his breeches so that he mooned the _Black Pearl_ and its occupants with his unnervingly bronzed buttocks.

"..What the _Hell_ just happened?" Jack sputtered, watching the piratical _Dauntless_ and Norrington's buttocks grow smaller. He looked to his crew, but all of them had expression of utter dumb-foundation on their faces. "I need a drink…"

"Captain, the other ship is closing in fast!" Athos called from the crow's nest. Chris and Jack leaned over the side of the _Pearl _to survey their rescuer. The ship looked very familiar, had polished wood and clean white sails puffing out in the breeze like the tops of fresh loaves of bread. There were two stories of cannons on each side, an enormous amount of guns for a ship as small, and as the ship sailed towards them, Chris just made out the name, painted in gold. Her mouth dropped open as she read _HMS Black Pearl_ upon the bow. The ship looked so familiar because it was the same build as the _Black Pearl_, except polished up with twice as many cannons and... Chris thought her mouth would detach when she saw the Union Jack waving from the mainmast!

"What is going on?" Chris cried. This was entirely too flummoxing, too confusing and jarring. Had Chris fallen mad? Perhaps during the storm she had fallen and hit her head, she just didn't remember because she was in a coma and imagining all of this weirdness.

Jack's mouth was pressed into a prim line. "I don't know... But I'm going to find out." The _HMS Black Pearl_ pulled up broadside along the _Black Pearl_ and the grappling hooks were thrown across, securing the twin ships together.

A man with an outrageously large hat was at the helm and as the grappling hooks were pronounced secure, he crossed to look from the bulkhead to the deck of the _Pearl_. "Did that pirate harm you at all?" He asked. Chris surveyed that the man was clean shaven, but he had long luxurious black tresses that any noble woman would kill for. His chest was puffed out and on his sleeve he wore the admiral's insignia of a broad band along with three narrower bands, all gold. Jack looked as if a feather could knock him over. This man was _Jack Sparrow_, except lacking everything piratical and possessing everything admiral. Chris herself could not believe her eyes, but an odd thought ran through her head. _If Admiral Jack and I were courting, we could stay up late at night and braid each other's hair…_

No one had answered the man's question, so Admiral Sparrow said, "I believed one of His Majesty's admirals just asked you a question!" He then seemed to take notice that the ship his own vessel had grappled onto looked very familiar. And he also took notice that the man staring at him in slack jawed disbelief also looked very familiar. The admiral rubbed his eyes and then looked upon the ship again. "It can't be…"

"What is the problem, Admiral?" A female voice asked from the stairs leading below. A woman with her brown hair elaborately curled and wearing a pale blue dress that must have been the height of fashion, if not practicality, emerged onto the deck. Following behind her was none other than Anamaria, dressed in serving girl gear and holding a parasol to shield this lady from the sun. It was Chris' turn to gape. The woman before her was exactly what Chris was not: she was the epitome of a perfect lady from her pale skin to her small hands, free from any sign of ever working a day in their lives. "Why have we stopped?" She asked Admiral Sparrow coldly.

"I-I seem to be hallucinating, Lady Thomas." Admiral Sparrow responded, looking dazed. "Perhaps I need a cool rag or a nice cup of tea... And a bit of a lie-down..." Slowly, Chris could see that members of the crew were also recognizing that something wasn't right here. Was that Cotton she saw as bo'sun?

"That doesn't answer my question as to why…" Lady Chris said but then her eyes fell on Chris and Jack. "Admiral... Do you see what I see?" She asked, her eyes widening.

"Apparently." The Admiral replied.

"Oh Lord, the world is coming to an end!" Lady Chris cried. "We've met our doppelgangers and our end is approaching fast! I'm too young to die! Oh God, help me!" Maidservant Anamaria tried to calm Lady Chris.

"I doubt very much that He would." Chris stated, and Lady Chris promptly fainted. Maidservant Anamaria fell to her side and Admiral Jack groaned. Chris was slightly satisfied to see that she wasn't the only one who found Lady Chris' prattle annoying.

"How did you come to be here?" Admiral Jack asked. "Are you… Are you really doppelgangers, foretelling our deaths?"

"Well, we don't know ourselves." Jack replied. Chris shot Jack a look and he grinned. "But, if ye got a strong drink, we might be inclined to tell ye the tale."

Later, Chris and Jack found them in the captain's cabin of the _HMS _Pearl sipping rum as Lady Chris and Admiral Sparrow sipped tea. Gibbs stood guard with Other-Gibbs, who was indeed a lieutenant and still first mate of the _HMS Black Pearl_. After Lady Chris had been revived, the pirates boarded the _HMS Pearl _and found that every single sailor aboard their ship was aboard the other in a different form. Other-Ragetti was navigator and married with three children, Other-Athos was studying for his lieutenant's exam, Other-Marty was head of the gunnery divisions, and Other-Pintel shockingly turned out to be a priest. Chris never felt so unnerved or ill-at-ease in her life. It was indeed all she could do to keep from squirming as she sat across from Lady Chris, who looked ashen and overexcited from the day's events. Maidservant Anamaria sat at her side, fanning the woman as Jack finished the tale of the strange storm that came from nowhere.

The admiral set his tea cup upon a saucer with shaky hands. "This sort of thing has happened before." He stated. "We have come upon shipwrecked souls, blathering that they do not belong here. We have also heard tales of others who have met their doubles, and one has killed the other, thinking them the devil in disguise."

"We're lucky that ye are very clear-thinkin', then." Jack said, grinning as he took a swig of rum and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Lady Chris looked at him, revulsion on her face.

"Clear-thinking, hah!" Lady Chris said, looking to the admiral. "Don't let his title fool you!"

Chris arched an eyebrow as she looked upon the admiral and lady. The man had a look of long suffering complacency on his face. "Do ye two not like each other?" Chris asked, though she already knew the answer.

"Not particularly. Ever since he spilled punch on my dress when we were children, he has been impossible." Lady Chris said, shooting a death glare at the admiral. Chris felt sorry for the poor lout, and so she reached for her Jack's hand on the table top and slipped hers into his. Lady Chris did not miss that, and her nose wrinkled.

Jack squeezed Chris' hand. "We just so happen to be courting." Jack stated with a smart grin. "And let me tell ye, the kisses that she has given –"

"_Sparrow_!" Both women were shocked to find that they spoke at the same time in the same tone of warning. Chris' eyes boggled and Lady Chris instructed Maidservant Anamaria to fan faster. Perhaps they weren't different in every respect.

At the mention of kisses, Admiral Jack had been in the middle of a sip of tea and had sprayed the brown liquid through his nose in alarm. "Apologies..." He murmured, dabbing at himself with a napkin and then holding the linen to his nose.

"And ye!" Jack looked at the admiral, pride glowing on his face. "Ye're an admiral! Bet the ladies love that, don't they?"

"It brings a certain amount of esteem, yes." Jack said. "Though I've not found the right woman, actually…"

Chris grinned at the admiral and turned to her own counterpart. "And I heard that you... me... _us_, well… We're engaged. But to whom?"

Lady Chris' already apparent bosom swelled with pride. "I am currently en route in the almost incapable hands of Admiral Sparrow to Britain. Father was able to arrange a most fortunate married for me with the Prince of Wales, whom I met a year or so ago at a court dinner."

Chris almost choked on a gulp of rum at that bit of information. "What?" She coughed a few times, hiccupped, and looked at her double as she hacked her airway clean. "The Prince of Wales? Really?" She looked to Jack and then back to Lady Chris. "You're going to be the next Queen of England?"

"I suppose so, yes." Lady Chris said nonchalantly, examining her nails, but the slightest prideful smile graced her lips. "We are heading for Dover, where I shall be put into the hands of the Lord Chancellor and then escorted to London and married. It shall be such a grand affair!"

Chris wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "Not only am I simpering nitwit in this reality, but I'm deranged as well. Wonderful." Lady Chris made a 'humph' sound and turned away from the table, her arms crossed.

Jack sat his empty cup onto the table and looked at his counterpart. "I think it would be in all of our best interests for us to return to our own world or whatever it is." He glanced at Chris and grinned. "I mean, after all, think of all the mischief Chris and I could get up to."Jack raised his eyebrows and seemed to bask in the possibility for a moment before looking to Admiral Sparrow. "Any tales of the shipwrecked survivors ever being able to get back to their world?"

"No." Admiral Sparrow replied. "But logical thinking would just bring the conclusion that you need to find that strange cloud and go back the way you came."

This hadn't occurred to Jack before. "Really?" He stood, grabbed Admiral Jack's hand, and shook it furiously. "Well, thanks for the advice mate, and if you're ever in our stretch of the sea, look us up." He took Chris' arm. "Let's go." The admiral and lady seemed dismayed at their sudden exit, but Jack whispered into Chris' ear as they left, "I don't want them to get any funny ideas. I mean, if we stayed here, we could wreak a veritable havoc upon their world. Best leave before they decide to be better safe than sorry and blow us out of the water."

Within half an hour, the admiral and lady watched as their pirate counterparts sailed away. Jack called out, "Oi! Admiral! Loosen up, live a little, a drink some more! It's good for ye! And ye should do something about that hair!" They didn't know what the admiral's reaction was, but Chris smiled as she went about with her duties. The _Black Pearl_ sailed north, searching the sky for that strange pulsating cloud. When they spotted the cloud and the ship was veered to head straight for it, Chris saw something that made her skin crawl. The cloud seemed to know that the ship was heading for it, and suddenly the sky and water was rent in two, opening a black gash up. "Steady lads!" Jack called as the _Pearl_ approached. "That's our doorway home."

"I hope." Chris said as the bow entered. She wouldn't vocalize it, but this strange image was enough to scare her almost witless. She had doubts about sailing into this mysterious gash, but she buried them and faced the opening with a neutral face.

"Hang on!" Jack cried as the ship slid into the gash and then there was the sound of something ripping. Chris' vision turned black and white and she felt that her legs would buckle underneath her. The entire world pulsated through a prism of colors and then suddenly the _Black Pearl_ was back in the sea, sailing straight into the port of Tortuga. Chris didn't know how they went in on a course bound for Barbados and came out pointing at Tortuga, but she certainly wasn't complaining.

As the _Pearl_ sailed into the harbor, Jack swung over the side and onto the pier before the anchor was dropped and hollered back up, "Sit tight! I'll check and make sure that we're back!" And with that he kicked up his heels and ran full-throttle into the port.

Gibbs and Chris looked at each other. "Reckon we should follow him?" Gibbs asked. Chris nodded, and they followed Jack's lead and swung onto the pier before following in his footsteps. They found him in the Faithful Bride just as he sauntered up to the yellow-clad Giselle. Chris did not hear what he said to her, but the wench pulled her hand back and smacked him across the face. Jack put a hand to his cheek, turned about, and saw his first mate and quartermaster.

"We're back in our world. No worries." Jack assured, crossing to his friends. Gibbs laughed and clapped him upon the back. "Let's return and give everyone the night off to come to terms with that fact."

After returning to the _Black _Pearl and watching the pirates disperse into the port, Chris turned to her captain, for she and he had volunteered to stay behind and keep watch. After all that had happened that day, Chris wasn't too keen on drinking herself into a stupor. Jack and Chris hauled out two chairs and a bench onto the deck. They sat in the chairs and rested their feet upon the bench, rum in hand, and faces turned to the stars. "Ye know," Chris said after some time had passed, "The other world, though holy unnerving –"

"No kidding! How did Norrington's tail get so tanned?" Jack shuddered at the thought and took a glug of rum.

Chris grinned. "It was interesting. Not me brother's tail, but – Well, have ye ever wondered what ye could have been?"

"I sometimes wonder what it could have been like if I was born a girl." Jack shrugged. "I would have _never_ left my room when I was a lad." Chris laughed, though it was a bit hesitant and perhaps a bit disturbed. Jack smiled at her and said, "Aye, sometimes I wonder what I would be if I hadn't turned out like this. I must say I didn't like either of our possible selves."

"Not even prim and proper me?" Chris asked teasingly.

"Oh, she may have been proper, but she was a right nag! Did ye hear her mutterin' under her breath about the admiral? I know he's supposed to be a gentleman and all, but I wouldn't have done a single thing if he had smacked her." Jack exhaled. "No, Chris, I much prefer you as you are."

"Truly?" Chris asked. "I know sometimes I can grate yer nerves."

"And like a true pirate, ye don't do anything about it." Jack laughed. He reached across and took her hand. "No, ye're my Chris, and I wouldn't change ye for the world."

"'_Your_ Chris?'" She echoed, arching an eyebrow. "Are ye claiming me as yer own, captain?"

"Oh get off it, woman, we are courtin', aren't we? Even if ye've yet to visit my cabin –" Chris went to say something and Jack hurriedly continued, " – which I respect one hundred percent! – Ye're mine, Chris. So ye'd best get used to it." He grinned and squeezed her hand.

"Then I suppose I lay claim to one Captain Jack Sparrow as well." Chris retorted, grinning.

"I accept. It takes two weeks to file said claim, so whatever I do in the meantime is considered fair game." Chris arched an eyebrow. "That's bureaucracy for you."

Chris laughed and shook her head. "I accept all circumstances and consequences of agreeing, I suppose."

Jack nodded. "Wise choice, lass." And with that, the courting couple looked back up to the starry heavens.

oOo

I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook  
A real live lover, could have been a book.  
I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock  
As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock.  
I could be  
Here and now  
I would be, I should be  
But how?  
I could have been  
One of these things first  
I could have been  
One of these things first.

I could have been your pillar, could have been your door  
I could have stayed beside you, could have stayed for more.  
Could have been your statue, could have been your friend,  
A whole long lifetime could have been the end.  
I could be yours so true  
I would be, I should be through and through  
I could have been  
One of these things first  
I could have been  
One of these things first.

I could have been a whistle, could have been a flute  
A real live giver, could have been a boot.  
I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock  
As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock.  
I could be even here  
I would be, I should be so near  
I could have been  
One of these things first  
I could have been  
One of these things first.


	11. Three Uncles

**Chapter Eleven  
Three Uncles**

That coming June, the _Black Pearl_ and its crew found themselves sitting out a storm in Tortuga. The _Pearl_ had encountered a storm that could be likened to the one that they had passed through to enter the other world, so without delay they sailed for the safety of Tortuga. As soon as straws were drawn for who would serve the watch upon the ship, those given shore leave dispersed. Jack and Chris had disembarked with Anamaria, Athos, Pintel, Ragetti, Gibbs, Marty and Cotton, but as they continued into town, Anamaria and Athos peeled away, followed shortly by Gibbs, Cotton, and Marty, and eventually it was only the captain, quartermaster, and Pintel and Ragetti who made it to the Faithful Bride. Pintel and Ragetti made a beeline for the bar, where Sarah awaited with a large smile and tankards of drink, and Jack and Chris had sat down to enjoy each other's company and delicious rum.

The tavern was unusually calm tonight. There were no brawls and no loud cussing. Chris and Jack had noticed three older men sitting as far away as possible from the bar, sipping dark glasses of brandy when they entered. It seemed that all those inside kept looking upon them warily, as though they were expecting something awful to happen. One of the men had silver hair and a matching beard, the other one had faded blonde hair and very full mustache, and the third one had hair that was a strange mix of blond, brown, and gray. They were murmuring to one another and after surveying them, Jack and Chris paid them no mind.

After observing a nearby table, Chris soon engaged in a game of cards for a bit of fun. She and Jack joined the table, and while Jack stayed out of it, he couldn't help but boast about how Chris was going to clean all of the others out. To be fair, Chris wasn't proficient at cards, but anything to pass the time was enjoyable. As the hands progressed, many small fortunes were lost and won between her opponents, with Chris not really possessing any measure of luck. She was playing against an old man with few teeth, two young, spry pirates, and a pretty blond barmaid with a good deal of exposed bosom.

Later that evening, most were running short of money. "Royal flush, boys, read 'em and weep." The barmaid said for about the twelfth time as she laid her cards down. Smiling, she pulled in several gold doubloons, some tarnished coins, a shoe, three knifes, and an antique pistol. Chris was pretty confident the woman was cheating, not only because she just so happened to keep drawing cards that lead to a royal flush so often, but the suit of the cards was always spades, never clubs, diamonds, or hearts. She tossed her cards back in the middle to be shuffled by one of the young pirates and looked at her captain.

"Ye're just getting' warmed up." Jack assured her. Chris was thinking about returning to the _Pearl_ for the night, preferably with all of her clothes.

The old man's lip trembled. He had bet the shoe, tarnished coins, and pistol as a last resort. It looked as though his luck and money had been spent fruitlessly. As the cards were dealt and the others readied their bets, one of the younger pirates asked, "Are you out or in, old man?"

The old man ran his tongue over his dry cracked lips for a few seconds before extracting a battered piece of paper from inside his shirt. There were food stains on it, and even a black spot of blood on a corner of the paper. "I'll bet this." He said. He set it carefully, reverently in the middle of the table.

"What the 'ell is that?" The other pirate asked.

"It's a treasure map to one of the richest treasure troves in the Caribbean." The old man said in a dry, reedy voice. "Been to that place twice and lived to tell about it."

"Then why aren't you filthy rich?" Chris asked dubiously, cocking her head to the side. It disturbed Loki, who jumped onto her head and scrambled to the opposite shoulder.

"Because the place is booby trapped." The old man explained. He plunked his right arm on the table and pulled up the sleeve. A long, stretching burn mark ran up his arm. "That was the first time." He then pulled up his shirt and showed a black scar running from his shoulder to his navel. "The second time, I almost lost my entrails in that cave."

"Let's see that map..." The barmaid said, reaching for the slip of paper. The old man slapped his hand onto the map securely, his eyes daring anyone to question him. "No one sees it 'cept me, unless you win it." He said fiercely. The barmaid let out a "Hmmph!" and turned her attention back to her cards.

Bets were dealt and Chris picked up her cards one by one. Her breath caught in her throat as she observed that she held the ace of hearts in her hand. She picked up her second card, which was a two of diamonds. Her third card made her jump. It was the ace of spades. Her fourth card was the ace of diamonds, and her last card was the ace of clubs. Chris thought that she was going to faint. She had never before drawn such a lucky hand, and now with a treasure map and a good deal of gold up for grabs, she felt immensely lucky.

One of the young pirates had nothing, the other had two pair, and the old man had a straight. "Ha!" The barmaid crowed victoriously. "Four of a kind! Unless ye have any aces, that treasure map is mine!" She placed her hand on the table and reached for the treasure map.

"Hold on there, missy." Jack said. "Ye're counting yer chicks before they hatch."

"Like anyone has all of the aces." The barmaid scoffed.

Chris simply smiled and laid her hand down. "I believe victory is mine."

The woman's mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. "No it... You… CHEAT!" The barmaid accused, pointing. She drew one of her won daggers and went to stand. The pirates and the old man looked on in alarm, but this did not go on unnoticed at the bar.

"Not so fast, love." Jack drew his pistol and aimed it at the barmaid's chest, his finger on the trigger. "I believe that pot belongs to me mate Chris here." He looked behind him as Pintel and Ragetti stood from their seats, hands on hilts. "And if ye'd like to beg to differ, I think there's four of us and one of you. So weight ye're odds, lass."

"Take it." The barmaid growled, sheathing her dagger. Under Jack's watchful eye and the nose of his pistol, Chris collected her winnings and left the card table, tucking the map safely into her shirt. As she left the table, she saw that the old man had risen. He bowed his head to those he had played with and, with a crushed expression upon his face, he vacated the tavern. _That's Lady Luck for ye, mate. Don't bet if ye can't afford to lose._

Chris and Jack went to find a table away from the game of cards when one of the older men approached. He was the one with a silver beard and hair. "Good evening." He bowed slightly and rose back up. "Forgive my forwardness, but I overheard that you're called Chris?" He asked. His accent was Scottish and not very heavy. Indeed, to hear him talk brought a strange soothing sensation to the listener.

"Aye." Chris replied, looking to Jack. He had not yet replaced his pistol into his sash, but his finger was upon the trigger.

The man smiled. "Chris is a strange name for a woman. Might it happen to be short for anything?"

Chris' lips pursed in suspicion. "What's it to you?"

"I just want to satisfy my own curiosity." He replied, his smile still in place.

"It's short for Christiana." Chris confessed. Jack's finger still hovered on the pistol's trigger.

"And would I be correct in presuming your last name is Thomas?"

Chris was very suspicious now. She certainly was no pirate of great renown, but those who knew her as Christiana Thomas… She would most likely be better off ignoring their company. "It is."

The man let out a great big booming laugh. "I thought so! Harry! Peter! It's little Christiana!" He called to the men at his table. "Oh, Christiana, it has been a long time."

Chris' mouth dropped open. There was only one explanation for this man asking her about her proper name and calling the other men at his table "Harry" and "Peter." "Uncle Allen?" She asked.

"Ye've grown like a weed since last I saw you, kiddo!" Allen gave the young woman and great big hug, even plucking her from the ground as they embraced. He sat her back down and said, "You are just about the image of your mother! Come, bring your friend and come to our table!" Allen turned without looking to see if she was followed.

Chris turned to Jack and said, "They're my mother's brothers." With that, she followed Allen and Jack tailed her, a bit of bewilderment upon her face. Allen, Peter, and Harry were really the only extended family Chris had ever come to know when she was small. They were her mother's brothers, and each was unique. Allen, the eldest, spent most of his adolescent years in Scotland. Peter, on the other hand, spent his childhood with Chris' mother in London and Harry, being more than a bit of a handful, had spent most of his youth in France to irritate his ultra-British father. Because of this, each brother had a different accent as well as a different personality. When Chris had headed to Jamaica to be married, they had all come to see her off and since then, she had not thought of them except in a fleeting moment of nostalgia.

When she, Allen, and Jack approached the table, her other two uncles stood. Peter was the one with gray-brown-blond hair and now she saw that facial hair rimmed his mouth, and Harry was the one with the blond hair and mustache. "Ah, my Christiana!" Harry said, kissing his niece on both cheeks. "What a fortunate coincidence to meet you here!"

Peter clapped his niece upon the shoulders and said, "By the way you're dressed, I think it's more than a coincidence."

"I'm a pirate." Chris said very matter-of-factly. "And this is my captain, the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow." She said, turning to Jack. He had placed his pistol back in his sash and he offered his hand.

"Sparrow?" Allen echoed. "Of course you sail with a right Hell-raiser!"

"While your memory 'as faded over time of our Christiana, mine has not." Harry said. "Don't you remember ze banquet when it was decided James would be following in his father's footsteps? I seem to remember a chandelier crashing down precariously close to where you were sitting because of our little Christiana."

Allen considered this as he looked upon his smiling niece. "Touché."

They settled into seats around the table and a round of rum was brought to them by Sarah. After all had taken their first sips, Chris asked, "Now ye know what I'm doing here, but what are you all doing here?"

"After you headed zis way, we became privateers." Harry explained.

"And privateers made way for pirating." Peter added, shaking his head.

"And I'm only just following these crazy old bastards because I'm too old to complain." Allen finished, settling back into his chair with a sigh. "Never thought we'd meet you out here, but we've certainly heard extraordinary tales about you and your captain."

Peter continued as Jack and Chris cast sideways looks at one another. "We were wondering just when we might actually get to see the little she-devil after we heard about – Which one was it, Har?"

"It wuz ze one wiz ze um... Ah yes, I believe it included a snake?" He looked at Chris, and she nodded. How that got out, she had no idea… "Ah yes. Heard about it from anuzzer Frenchie named Giles de Fayette, and hiz first mate, Marak."

Both Jack and Chris' eyes darkened at Marak's name. Jack lingeringly touched his jaw, and Chris likewise touched the scar from the serpent as Peter continued, "Damn it, Harry, you may talk like a Frenchman, but you were born _British_."

"I am French in my heart!" Harry objected. "_Vive la France! Vive la Louis_ –!"

Allen held up a hand to silence his younger brothers and they complied. Chris shook the dark thoughts of Marak from her head and stated, "Well, I haven't heard anything about three old men being fearsome and loathsome pirates." She offered.

"Old?" Harry asked, grasping his breast. "You wound me, _mon petite_ _fleur_!" Chris shrugged and grinned.

"Ehh, we don't do anything too big. Allen doesn't want to attract attention." Peter nudged his brother's elbow. "But we did run into Commodore Norrington a while back. I remembered how I used to take a switch to him when he misbehaved before your mother married your father… I laughed right at him when he told us to surrender, and that didn't go down too well with him." Peter chuckled.

"He told us he'd put us to death as soon as he captured us, as one didn't see hangings at sea too often... We disabled his ship and left him in a right mess." Allen finished, chortling. "I don't think he recognized us…"

When Peter spoke of Chris' mother, she looked up from her glass meekly and asked, "Do you know…about mother?"

Peter sighed heavily. "Aye, Chris. We know. We didn't know if you did."

"I heard." Chris said.

Allen raised his mug. "To Charlotte, may she rest in peace." All at the table raised their mugs and drank deep to the memory of Chris' mother and the older men's sister.

"But to ze present!" Harry declared. "We were heading for Cuba when we ran into zis God-awful storm and had to dock here." He grinned. "You may have noticed it is quite tame here. Zum of ze men were being smart wiz Allen, but when he neutered zeir ringleader, zey decided to leave us be. Zo you may call us old, Christiana, but we have ze vim and vigor of any young puppy!"

Jack, who had stayed silent this entire time, had gone a little red in the face at the mention of neutering. Chris bit her cheek to stop giggles from emerging. Suddenly, the same barmaid who had lost the card game came up behind the woman and pulled her from her chair, holding a dagger to her throat. It was sudden and quick, but that didn't stop the men at the table from standing and putting their hands upon the hilts and handles of their weapons.

"Nobody move!" The barmaid commanded. "You try anything brave, and she's dead!" The hands stayed upon the hilts. The barmaid began backing up. "Gimme the map!" She hissed in Chris's ear. The barmaid wound her fingers tightly in Chris' chestnut hair. "Where is it?"

"I won't tell ye!" Chris hissed. Loki had fallen to the floor and was now screeching uncontrollably. "Ye lost fair and square, get over it!" Her uncles and Jack were matching the barmaid step for step as she continued backing towards the tavern door. Pintel and Ragetti had noticed and also rose from their seats at the bar. Though Chris couldn't see it, a shadow of doubt and fear flickered through the barmaid's eyes. She approached the door and kicked it open with her heel.

"I am asking you for the last time." The barmaid warned Chris as they entered the street. She tightened the dagger against Chris' throat. "Where is the map?" She said each word forcefully and deliberately, her voice unwavering. Chris said nothing, but swallowed. The barmaid looked down and saw the square outline standing out against the smoothness of Chris' white shirt. The barmaid pulled her hand from Chris' hair, taking some with it, and plunged into the front of the shirt, snatching the paper from inside. With her task achieved, she looked up as the three uncles, pirate captain, and two pirates followed them from the tavern. The barmaid kept her grip upon Chris.

"Lady... I don't know what Christiana did to offend you," Peter began as every single one of the men drew a pistol and pointed it at the two women. Chris saw that Loki rode upon Jack's shoulder and his teeth were bared. Peter continued. "Let her go. This is your only warning."

"Not until those guns are off me." The barmaid growled, the blade tight as it ever was against Chris' throat. Chris felt her skin break against the blade and she made a sound of alarm. Would it really end here, being killed over the winnings of a card game Chris had only played for fun? There was a bang. Harry's gun was smoking. Chris felt a spray of warm mist on her cheek, and the barmaid's arm was suddenly slack. As the barmaid fell away from Chris, her blade drug down, cutting her diagonally across the left side of her throat and the notch in her collar bone. Chris fell as well, clapping a hand to her lacerated neck, thinking that if the blade cut deep enough, her only hope was to try and hold pressure upon it so that she could try to prevent bleeding to death. Allen, Peter, and Jack both crowded about her

"Uncover it Chris, let us see." Jack urged. Loki screeched.

"Is it deep?" Allen queried.

"Give her some air!" Peter commanded.

Hesitantly, Chris took her hand away so that the others could examine her. She saw the smearing of blood upon her palm. Her heart was pounding in her ear. Was the cut enough to take life from her? After thirty seconds of inspection, Jack offered his hand to Chris. "Ye'll be alright. It's not deep enough to even give ye a scar. It's like ye cut yourself shave with a really long razor."

Chris let out a long breath, accepting Jack's hand and standing. "Thank God for that..." Loki leaped from Jack's shoulder to hers and rubbed his furry cheek against her smooth one.

Harry had gone through the barmaid's body and handed Chris the map. "I believe zis is yours." He said.

"Thank you Uncle Harry." Chris said, tucking the map back into her shirt. She hoped whatever haul could be gained from it would be worth her cut and the barmaid's life. She suddenly felt tired from the adrenaline rush and the fear of death. "Uncles, it has been wonderful seeing all of you, but I think I should be returning to our ship and have a lie down."

"Of course." Peter said, nodding. "I'm sure we'll run into each other again."

Chris gave her uncles quick hugs and as she turned to return to the ship, Allen grabbed Jack's sleeve and said, "You take care of our miss, you her?"

"She's me quartermaster, o' course I'll take care of her." Jack replied somewhat indignantly. Chris smiled at her beau and bade her uncles goodnight before the pair, the monkey, and Pintel and Ragetti headed back to the _Black Pearl_.

The next day the sun was shining, a western breeze was blowing, and as everyone filed into the galley, ready to sail once again now that the weather was fine, Jack sat next to Chris. "Reckon we should try that map?" He asked quietly.

"Why not?" Chris replied, placing a spoonful of burgoo into her mouth and chewing. "If the old man was telling the truth we'd best be cautious." She extracted the map from the inside of her shirt. This, of course, was not lost of Anamaria, who was sitting next to Athos.

"Why didn't ye let him get it himself, Chris?" Anamaria laughed, her eyes sparkling as she teased her crewmate.

Chris grinned and did something Anamaria wasn't expecting. She tucked the map back inside her shirt and looked at Athos. She leaned over the table, puffed her chest out, and asked, "Athos, if you could be a dear…?"

Athos blanched and looked between Anamaria and the quartermaster. "I um… Um… No. No thank you." With that, he began shoveling burgoo into his mouth like it was his last meal. Anamaria glared at Chris as she sat back down and plucked the map once more from the recesses of her shirt and handed it to Jack.

Jack looked at it for a moment before announcing to his crew, "We have a heading!"

The map basically outlined an island on one side, and on the reverse was an outline of several tunnels branching from a cavern entrance on the island, and they all connected to different passageways, which eventually led to a large opening in the middle of the cave system. Each passageway was numbered with small inscriptions or phrases. The opening was labeled 'The Honey Pot.' The tunnels and passageways had curious names like, "Reign of Pearls," "Silver I," and "Forgiven Turns." The course was set, the sails were let out, and the _Pearl_ sailed from Tortuga with a heading for treasure.

The next evening, the _Black Pearl_ arrived at the island close to sunset. The several coves that bordered the small island were labeled, and as the _Pearl_ maneuvered to face the cove that contained the cavern entrance, everyone was startled to see a ship already there. Gold lettering on the side named it the _Death Rattle_. Jack called began ringing the bell furiously, barking, "All men to arms! Fire on my order!" The relatively calm ship suddenly awoke with pirates racing from deck to deck with the threat of attack. Jack looked at Chris. "Well. This might be fun." He grumbled. Chris said nothing, but retrieved the boarding weapons.

The _Black Pearl_ swung around so that she was broadside from the _Death Rattle_. Jack was examining the ship through his long glass when he spotted three familiar faces on deck, waving. "Oh, bloody Hell...Chris, it's yer bleedin' relatives!"

"What?" Chris snatched the telescope from Jack's hands and almost gouged out her eye with it. "Ow!" She held the glass steady and saw that, yes, her three uncles were on board the _Death Rattle _and grinning. "How the –?"

"That's what I'd like t' know, Chris." Jack said, taking the long glass from her eye. He looked upon her, vast disappointment written across his face "Did ye give them a copy o' the map? Do ye tell them to follow us?" Never before had Chris heard such suspicion in her captain's voice.

"Captain Sparrow, my loyalty is to you and the crew of the _Black Pearl_, not to three uncles who materialized from thin air after not seeing them for almost a decade. I am offended and outraged that you could even suggest a thing!" Chris noticed that sometimes when she was righteously angry she certainly did take on her educated and refined way of speaking. This, obviously, was one of those times.

Jack nodded once. "Apologies, Chris. Let's see how they came to be here, then." Jack maneuvered the _Pearl_ so that she and the _Death Rattle _were close enough for grappling hooks and boarding planks to be thrown across. When Jack, Gibbs, and Chris boarded the other ship, her three uncles faced them with no humility or apology on their faces.

"Ah, Chris." Harry began, crossing to greet his niece. "I did not expect to zee you zo zoon." He went to kiss her twice upon the cheeks, but his niece stopped him.

"I'm sure you did not, Uncle Harry." Chris replied, her eyebrows arching. "But just how in the world did you come to be here?" Her tone was anything but kind.

"We uh... got lost?" Harry suggested, smiling.

"Oh stow it, Harry, she's family. And also, she's not stupid." Allen joined his brother. "He copied the map while we were inspecting your neck."

"Ye double-crossing, half-witted, sons of –!" Chris began.

Allen held up his hand. "Chris, you have every right to be cross, but I will still spank you if you use foul language. I am still your uncle." Gibbs let out a cough that was an ill-cover for a laugh. "But we've got a copy of this map now, and we aren't leaving without some treasure."

"I can change that." Jack growled. "Everyone to quarters!" He howled to those on the _Pearl_. "Fire on my command!"

"Now wait a minute!" Peter crossed to join his brothers. "We aren't exactly looking to pick a fight!" He said hastily.

"Well, consider one picked!" Jack said, drawing his sword. "And we'll just see who gets to go after that treasure. My cannon are loaded and my men are ready."

"Per'aps we can make a deal?" Harry suggested, raising his hands.

Jack hesitated but Chris and Gibbs looked at him, their eyes compelling him to at least hear them out. After all, a fight at this proximity would be dangerous to the attacker and attacked. "What kind o' deal?"

"We split ze treasure uh...Seventy-zirty? You get ze seventy, of course... Zen no one gets 'urt, and we are all fairly 'appy." Harry said.

Jack looked at Gibbs, who shrugged. "Sounds better than havin' to repair the _Pearl_ for several days."

Jack sheathed his sword. "Deal."

The majority of the crew of the two pirate ships camped on the beach that night. The consensus was that the pirates would wait until the sun had risen to go after the treasure. Chris let Harry make several copies of the reverse side of the map, for the number of the passageways and tunnels was quite daunting when one thought of going inside with no guide, and there would be more than just the captains and officers of the ships entering the caves.

After the map was copied, Allen introduced her to the first mate of the _Death Rattle_. The three brothers all shared the title of captain, but they all agreed on this single man to be their first mate. His name was Ziph. He had black hair down to his shoulders, brown eyes, skin the color of cinnamon, and reminded Chris too strongly of Marak. After introducing the pair, Allen left the two to get better acquainted. What followed was an awkward silence until Chris left to get herself some rum. She received the impression that her uncle had perhaps been trying to play the part of matchmaker. She made a note to kick him in the jewels for that later.

The next morning, Anamaria, Gibbs, Pintel, Ragetti, Chris, Jack, Harry, Allen, Peter, and Ziph hiked to the cave opening. They each had torches to light their way inside the cavern, and once the entrance chamber branched into passageways, they would separate into pairs, one to each, and follow their passageway all the way through to the middle to make sure that there wasn't missed swag in the passageways. Athos, Cotton (with Loki), and Marty would wait at the cave opening. If anyone was wounded by the booby traps the old man had warned of (and still alive), they would return to the entrance and receive what medical care the three could offer. Once the treasure was reached, those who reached it would emerge and Athos would relay the message to the pirates in the beach camps, and then all would begin the strenuous task of carrying the riches from the cave to the ships.

The opening of the cave was dark and lacking anything extraordinary. Stalactites and stalagmites stretched from the ceiling down and the floor up. There was the faint sound of dripping water, and the rock floor was slightly slippery. When the ten pirates reached the end of the cavern, five holes in the cavern rock gaped open before them like yawning mouths. Chris held the original map before her torch. Each hole was numbered oddly from one to nine. The woman arched an eyebrow.

"Alright... Me and Jack'll take number one... Ana, ye and Gibbs take three..." She indicated the hole, "Rags, ye and Pint take five –"

"Har and I'll take seven." Peter interrupted.

"Then that leaves Ziph and me nine." Allen concluded.

"Alright." Jack said, rubbing his chin. "Remember, just follow yer passageways... And try not get killed. We all have our maps, yes?" It was confirmed that all had their copies. "Then let's go!"

"Good luck." Chris said as everyone crawled into their holes. Jack had her hold his torch as he pulled himself into their passageway. She then handed the torches to Jack and slid in beside him. They found themselves in a dark, dank passageway. Up ahead there was light. Chris bit her lip as she inhaled the sour mildew scent of the passageway. For some reason, a spark of fear leaped to life in her stomach.

Jack had already pressed on ahead, and when he realized he was alone, he turned back to Chris. "Chris? Ye alright?"

Chris swallowed. "Aye."

"Liar." Jack's face split into a grin and he took Chris' free hand. "Ye'll be alright, or did ye forget that I'm Captain Jack Sparrow?" He squeezed her hand three times, and the spark of fear was snuffed out.

"How could I?" She asked. Jack grinned. As they continued, they entered a small chamber that opened up to be spacious and airy. The chamber was labeled as 'Silver I' one the map. On the wall facing them was a carving of a giant skull, and beside it, a short poem carved into the stone. The chamber was bare, with no exit besides the entrance. The pair read the badly spelled poem to themselves.

_Pour Ol' Willy Lost His I_  
_Becuz He Told A Dirty Ly_  
_As His I Was Popd Out_  
_His Ofendr Manajd To Showt_  
_'Nevr Ly_  
_Or Yu'l Get a Spyk In Yur I!'_  
_So Ol' Willy Was In A Fix_  
_Til He Fownd To Gypsy Chix_  
_They Fixd Him Up With A Silvr I_  
_And Now Al Men Envi Him When He Walx By_  
_To Hav Such Welth In An I Soket_  
_Is Enuf To Compel A Man To Put It In His Poket_

Chris looked to Jack. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Jack shrugged. "Beats me. Looks like it was written by Rags."

Chris smiled sardonically and rolled her eyes. "Do ye see where we're supposed to go?"

"No."

"Me neither." Chris bit her lip and observed the rest of the chamber. There were shelves carved into the rock, and objects such as a rusty spikes, hooks, and daggers rested on them. She found a bracket affixed in the rock and placed her torch there. "Do ye suppose it's a puzzle?"

Jack scratched his chin. "Aye. Maybe... We're to shove a spike in the skeleton's eye socket." He placed his torch next to hers.

Chris looked closer at the carved skull. In one eye socket was a faded ball of something shiny. Using the cuff of her sleeve, she rubbed it clean. It was pure silver. "Or..." She began, "We do as the poem says and place this silver in our pocket."

Jack paced back and forth in the short distance between walls. "I think we should try the spike." He suggested, and Chris nodded. Jack selected a middle-sized spike and walked up to the skull carving. He thrust the spike into the empty eye socket and the floor beneath him fell away, and Jack followed closely.

"Jack!" Chris raced forward, fell to her stomach, and latched onto Jack's arm just before he disappeared from sight. "God, you're heavy!" Chris grunted as she began hauling Jack up. Once his torso was out of the pit, he was able to pull himself the rest of the way. Chris rested against the carved skull and Jack lay on his stomach to catch his breath.

"Ye know…" Jack gasped, "The next time I have to carry yer sorry hide, maybe I'll make a comment about yer weight."

Chris cocked her head to the side. "Really? Really, Sparrow?" She asked. Jack grinned and reached for her hand. He took it and kissed it before pulling himself to his feet.

He looked into the pit he would have fallen into and saw that several swords standing upon end had awaited him if Chris had not grabbed him. "Let's try your idea. And be mindful where we stand."

Chris stood and turned to the skull. She grabbed onto the jaw bone and wedged the fingers of her other hand in between the silver eye and the rock. With some grunting and prying, Chris pulled it out. The ground gave way beneath her, but Jack had been watching for that and he snatched Chris around the waist and pulled her away from the opened pit.

"Ye know, this isn't very fun." Jack said, releasing his quartermaster. "I don't fancy getting skewered. Maybe we should go back, try and help some of the others."

Chris peered down into the pit, this time seeing nothing but water below. "There isn't any danger that I can see... Just water."

Jack joined her in looking down. "That may be our only way forward." He shook his head. "I hope the swag's worth it."

"Shall we?" Chris asked, offering her hand. She put on a smile for her captain.

"I don't like this." Jack took her hand and together, they plunged down towards the water. With a powerful smack, Chris hit the water and almost released Jack's hand. Her face, her torso, everything stung from impact. She felt herself being pulled up by Jack's hand, so she stopped mulling on the pain and swam to the surface.

Chris surfaced and saw, with surprise, that the cavern was lit by small holes scattered in the rock ceiling. A cascade of water fell down from a huge break in the rock and there was a water fall flowing over a stony setting of rocks into the pool. "What's this one labeled?" Jack asked as he pulled his dreads and bandana from his eyes.

Chris extracted the sopping map from inside her shirt. She had to be careful unfolding it so it wouldn't rip, and the water had made some of the markings indistinguishable. Chris squinted and announced, "Reign of Pearls."

"There's no pearls though..." Jack said unnecessarily, peering at the water.

"Let's get over there." Chris pointed to the rocks where the waterfall fell down. There were layers of the stone close enough and high enough that the two could climb up them. The two pirates swam to the rocks and climbed up one layer, and then another. Just before they reached the top, they stopped to catch their breaths and gather their strength. Chris rung the water out of her shirttails, looking at the runoff of the nearby waterfall on the rocks she stood upon. Suddenly she heard a plinking noise. Chris looked to the rocks at her feet and noticed some small stones had bounced from the waterfall. She leaned down and picked them up and discovered that they were not rocks, but pearls.

"Jack, look!" Chris proffered her hand to her captain and he snatched the round gems from her hand. He grinned at her and Chris said, "They came from up there!" With that, the two pirates pulled themselves up the last bit of rock and found themselves on a flat spread of stone. Water cascaded from an indistinguishable source, making a riptide of water which then ran off the rock as the waterfall. But that was not worth mentioning, oh no, for behind the cascade of water sat what looked like a pearl encrusted throne strung with ropes of the same gem. If that were not enough, hundreds if not thousands of pearls littered the stone around the throne and marinated in pools of water.

"Holy..." Chris breathed, her lips parted. Never before had she seen so many pearls in one place, nor had she ever seen such a lavish piece of furniture.

"Let's get us some pearls!" Jack exclaimed. With a whoop, he slid and fell on the little white spheres to the throne. He took his sash and after tying one of the ends in on itself he had made a makeshift bag. Greedily, Jack shoveled handfuls of pearls into his sash, sometimes raising them to his lips for a kiss.

Chris followed her captain's lead, filling the pockets of her trousers when she came across ring without a setting. It had a flat, oval shaped top where the gem would have a place. She was about to throw it away; thinking it nothing, when Jack said, "We better get moving on... I don't think we need to get anymore pearls to weigh us down, love... But we shall return, oh yes!" Chris slipped the empty ring onto her finger and followed her captain to the face of rock behind the throne.

A corridor was carved into the rock. Jack and Chris slipped in and arrived in a chamber that contained eight different passageways, all in a circle. Above each one was a small paragraph carved into the stone.

_One out of 8 leeds to the last puzzle before the Honey Pot. The other 7 leed to sirtan deth. Chuse whisely. Onse you go in, ther is no coming bak. But, this wring may help. If your blud is pur, and you have the wright combinashun, it will point to the wright chamber._

Below the paragraphs were poor carvings of a ring with no gem, the ring that the quartermaster had slipped upon her finger. "I have the ring!" Chris announced, pulling it from her hand and holding it before her. "It said we needed blood, right?" She unsheathed her dagger, but Jack reached out to stop her.

"It says combination, love."

"So?" Chris asked.

"Maybe it needs blood from two, not one." Jack took her dagger and pricked his finger. Chris did the same. They both had drops of blood upon the pads of their fingers as Chris supplied the ring. "On three, we both squeeze our fingers." Jack said, and then counted. Their drops of blood hit the metal, and as soon as they had mixed, a small bubble rose from the ruddy red liquid, growing in size until it covered the blood and encased it onto the ring. The bubble hardened and now it looked as though the ring possessed a ruby setting. "How d'ye reckon it tells the direction?" Jack asked.

Chris slid the ring on one of her fingers. With the warmth of her skin, the ring gathered heat as well. The setting turned blue, and a small green arrow arose from the middle. It whirled around before pointing directly to a passage to their left. Jack grinned, took Chris' hand, and they entered.

At the end of the passageway was yet another chamber. As soon as Chris and Jack stepped into it, their weight depressed something in the floor. Several sandbags to their left rose into the air and a rock wall slid down over the passageway's entrance with a bang. Jack cast a wary look at the door, but said nothing, for there was nothing to be said. Chris saw that the chamber contained nothing but a hand crank rising from the floor.

"Well... I don't fancy this." Jack said, sighing. He looked for any exits and found none. "What's the name of this chamber?" He asked, walking to the crank.

"Forgiven Turns." Chris announced, and then cursed as some of the map fell apart in her hands.

"Forgiven turns." Jack repeated. He looked at the hand crank and muttered the phrase a few more times as he ran his hand over the handle. "Maybe... Forgiven is misspelled. I mean, like I said, it looks like everything we've read was written by Rags." He ignored Chris' glare. "Four given turns... We'd have to turn the hand crank four times." He stepped to the hand crank and grabbed its split and weathered wooden handle. He grunted as he tried to pull it, but had no such luck.

"Lemme help you." Chris placed her hand beside Jack's, and with a few grunts, the handle loosened. They cranked it around three times, and on the fourth the floor gave way. Chris couldn't help but let out a scream as they tumbled to the darkness below. They landed once more in a pool of water with a splash. The water was shallow enough to stand in, so as soon as Chris gathered her wits, she stood. Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she felt nauseated. Everything was red: the water, her skin, and the nearby rocks. It was like she was covered in blood, perhaps the blood of those she had killed! It was everywhere! She began breathing hard as her stomach did somersaults. Blood was everywhere! It was all over her arms, her face, she was standing in it!

"Chris! Chris, love!" She heard a voice. Someone shook Chris and she looked at Jack, who was also covered in blood. Why was there so much blood? "Chris, it's an illusion!" Jack picked up a rock from beneath the water's surface and vaulted it at the ceiling. With a shatter, hundreds of small rubies fell into the water and the blood was gone. The woman felt woozy and her stomach still rolled. Chris sat down in the water with a splash, her body shaking furiously.

"It was just the rubies." Jack soothed, kneeling beside her. "They were wedged up there to cast the illusion of blood." Jack pointed up. The blue sky and sun was overhead. "I can't even imagine what they had to go through to pull that off…"

With shaking hands, Chris looked at what was left of the map, deciding she might as well see what this place had been named while she calmed herself. This chamber was called 'The Blud Chamber,' and through one last doorway was the Honey Pot. "I'm alright!" Chris decided, standing up. "We're almost there." She and Jack found an opening at the edge of the chamber and followed a short passage. They immediately felt the chamber they entered open up, and with the sunlight reflecting from the water in the previous chamber, they were able to witness what filled the "Honey Pot." Scattered all around inside of a large open chamber was gold, silver, ropes of pearls, gems, crowns, golden weapons, silver dishes and cutlery, crystal bottles filled with drink, and precious stones as big as Chris' fist. Also inside was what must have been silk at one time, but now had been eaten away by mildew and other things.

Chris looked upon it all with awe. Never in her years of pirating had she seen swag like this. There was enough gold here alone to keep every single sailor of the _Black Pearl_ eye deep in rum, good food, and wenches for the rest of their lives. With a whoop, she and Jack began to touch the treasure, throw gems and coins and each other, and try to wedge items into their already heavy pockets. "I'm going to go and get the others!" Jack grinned, grabbing a crown and placing it atop his head. "I'll be back soon, just don't spend it without me!" Jack turned to head for the entrance.

"Will do, captain." Chris replied, looking at a pile of gems. Jack turned back around, grabbed Chris by the shoulders, and planted a very wet, very happy kiss upon her lips. He grinned before continuing out of the chamber, whistling "A Pirate's Life for Me" as he went.

Chris decided to venture further into the cavern while Jack was gone and scope out what it held. As she rounded a piled of gold coins she saw to her shock that a body was lying face up upon a pile mildewed silk. It took her but a moment to recognize the face with the silver hair and beard. "Uncle Allen? Uncle Allen!" She vaulted to her uncle's side and fell to her knees, her fingers going to the side of his face. He had a bloody gash on his head, but he was breathing –

**WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!**

Something struck the back of her head heavily a few times. Chris was unconscious after the first strike. She pitched forward onto her uncle's chest and knew nothing but darkness.

When she awoke, Chris found herself tied to the handle of a rather heavy chest filled with gold. Allen was tied next to her, still unconscious, blood running down his face. Who had done this? Chris no sooner had the thought than she received her answer. "Hello, Christiana." Ziph walked forward from behind a pile of silver plates. In his hand was a golden candlestick with blood on the base. "Where are your friends?"

The quartermaster was wondering the same thing. Chris' head throbbed with pain from the blows as she looked up at him. "I'm guessing you're the one who gave me this lovely head wound?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Yes. And your uncle. He turned his back on me for one moment and –" Ziph motioned hitting him with the candlestick. "Fell like a sack of grain."

"Why would you do this?" Chris asked. "My uncles trusted you. Hell, being first mate, you're bound to get a decent cut of the swag!"

"You may have heard power changes people." Chris sighed at Ziph's words, feeling a long and very boring self-righteous speech coming on. She wasn't disappointed. "I knew your uncles when they first started privateering. I was a cabin boy on their ship, and I eventually followed them into pirating. Allen here... Well, he should have known me long before he became a privateer." Ziph's face now became twisted in hatred as he continued speaking. "Twelve months before I was, born, he met my mother. Three months later, he promised her that they'd be married. Nine months later I was born. But Allen never married my mother. He never gave us anything he promised. He left one week after promising himself to my mother and never returned. When I was young, I saw him in the streets one day, talking with Harry and Peter about privateering on their new ship, the _Death Rattle_. Once he had said their names and I noted he had silver hair, something my mother always told me, I knew he was my father. I signed up to be a cabin boy, convinced that I'd have a father once he found out. But he was always busy, even now, when I'm his first-mate, he doesn't have time to listen to me! So, as my inheritance, I'm going to kill him, Harry, Peter, and their precious niece, Christiana. And then, I will take the _Death Rattle_, capture the _Pearl_, and take all of this treasure for myself."

Chris was silent for a moment. This man was quite possibly the most egotistical and self-inflated moron she ever had the displeasure of meeting. "You know you have problems, right?" Ziph walked forward and bludgeoned Chris once on the head, his lips curled back in anger. Chris' vision spun for a minute, and then it stopped. "You're just doing this because you never told him that you were his son?" She continued. "Believe me, if you had told him, he would have been over the moon about that fact. I cannot tell you how many times he lamented that he could not give me a cousin when I was young!" It was true, with Allen being the eldest Blackett son there had been the matter of him providing an heir for the family, something he had never accomplished. Chris continued. "He'd have been the best father the likes of you could dream of. But, since you got tongue tied, you're going to kill him? Way to be a man!"

Ziph was shaking with what Chris could only assume was hatred and rage. "He was never there for me!"

"Grow a pair and quit your whining!" Chris replied, her face a mask of defiance and loathing. "Lord, you're supposed to be an adult! Stop dwelling on the past and be a man!"

Ziph raised the candle stick once more to bludgeon here when the sound of three pistols cocking echoed through the tavern. "Put it down son." Jack's voice commanded.

"No!" Ziph said, his shaking growing even more violent. Chris looked around frantically for Jack, but she saw nothing.

"Is it worth getting shot?" Peter's voice asked. "Ziph, come, be reasonable."

Ziph shook his head. "No! I'm gonna do this! I'm gonna pay him back for not keeping his promises." He looked directly in Chris' eyes and smiled. "I'm going to be a man."

_Well, bravo Chris_! The quartermaster quickly swiped one of her legs under Ziph, tripping him up before he could bring the candlestick crashing down. As he fell, his left temple came into contact with the corner of the chest and he lay still. Harry, Jack, and Peter walked from behind several piles of treasure, pistols raised. Jack untied Chris' hands while Harry and Peter untied their brother and tried to bring him around. With some pats to the cheek, Allen's eyes fluttered. He winced with pain as he reached up to touch his head wound. "What the bloody Hell happened?"

Harry looked warily at Chris and she shrugged. "First zing is first, _mon frère_. Let's get you out of here."

The long and ardent task of carting treasure from the caves preoccupied everyone for the next few days. Allen had been helped from the cave by one of his brothers and his niece while his other brother and Jack carried Ziph. Upon their return to the camp, Ziph was placed in a cot while Chris told Allen everything the man had told her, and Harry and Peter confirmed that they had heard most of it. "A son… _My_ son…" Allen breathed. He then immediately went to be at Ziph's side, but the man was missing from his cot and did not reappear again over the coming days. When he still had not reappeared after all the treasure that the ships could hold had been brought from the caves, the captains and crew of the _Death Rattle _decided to sail without him.

It turned out that Jack and Chris had gone through nothing compared to the others. Anamaria and Gibbs each had received cuts from what they described as winged knives, and Pintel sustained a burn that needed to be slathered with ointment every day from a sort of device that hurled flame. While Chris had sustained head trauma because of Ziph, she certainly thought it was easier to deal with rather than the more physical wounds of her friends.

A week after venturing into the cave system, the _Death Rattle_ and the _Black Pearl_ had been weighted down with treasure. The ships had taken on the maximum amount of weight that they could without risking sinking, but inside the caves it still looked like no one had ever taken so much as a single coin. It was as if the wealth would never diminish. Jack and Chris made plans to travel back when things were tight and empty the caves once and for all… One day.

The two ships made their goodbyes as the sun set. Allen reminded Chris not to, and she would quote, "Be as much of a damn fool as I am."

Peter wished her, Jack, and the _Pearl_ luck, and Harry just gave Chris two kisses upon the cheek and said, "_Vive la Piraterie_!"

"Take care of yourselves." Chris said before she boarded the _Pearl_. "You're the closest things I have to friendly family in this stretch of ocean!" They promised nothing and with that sentiment, the _Death Rattle _and the _Black Pearl_ parted ways. The _Pearl_ set a heading for Tortuga and as the sun sank below the horizon, Chris joined her captain at the wheel. Not many were around, so Chris slipped an arm about his waist and leaned a head upon his shoulder. While she had no future plans to visit Jack's bed, it was nice to have a person she could touch.

"So you know my brother and ye've met my uncles," Chris Began, "And now I want to know what d'ye think of my family?" The quartermaster asked, rolling her head to look into her captain's face.

Jack shook his head. "My dad would like 'em. They're right honorable and definitely a trio of characters." Jack said thoughtfully. "But remind me never to piss ye off."

Chris hadn't expected that. "Why?" She asked.

"Well, if I do, not only will I have a commodore of His Majesty's Navy after me, but three half-insane old codgers. And believe ye me, I do _not_ want four feet planted into me jewels." Chris laughed and squeezed her beau tightly about the waist as the _Black Pearl_ headed for the horizon.

oOo

My strange uncles from abroad  
Yes I never met them  
But I took everything they wrote  
And I'll never forget them  
Through the mystical communication  
Deep within it all comes true  
Forming underground railroad  
For our ultimate break through!

My strange nephews from abroad  
I'll meet them on the cosmos streets  
And we will drink to how we never told you  
To trust a plastic beat

Bright open eyes, they are still looking  
They are still finding  
A few unpoisoned hearts  
No matter where you are exiled.  
No matter where you are exiled!


	12. The Return of Black Bart !

**Chapter Twelve  
Black Bart**

The wind blew Sarah's reddish locks across her face as she stared up at Ragetti, whose cheeks matched the woman's hair. Their hands were joined and they faced each other. Sarah wore a dress of light yellow and Ragetti was wearing a handsome looking overcoat over his piratical clothes. Chris had found it in the chest of disguises in her cabin and decided it would be fitting for the situation. Doctor Baloo, the closest thing to a priest that Tortuga could possibly possess, stood between the man and woman. "Ragetti, do ya take dis woman as yer wench—" With a look from Chris, Baloo corrected himself. "Er, wife, until ya get swallowed by de sea?"

Upon arrival to Tortuga the day before, Ragetti decided that he wanted to take a daring leap. He barged into the Faithful Bride at the peak of their business hours and, across the crowded room, proclaimed his love for Sarah and asked if she would marry him. Sarah's response was, "Yes, but go away, I have drinks to serve!" Plans were laid, and the next night Ragetti, Sarah, and the crew of the _Black Pearl_ marched to Doctor Baloo's hut and asked that he marry them. Baloo had smacked the man upside the head and hollered, "I ain't a damn priest, boy!" However, he complied after receiving a handsome payment from Ragetti for his services.

Now as the rather gloomy question was poised to Ragetti, the groom gulped and nodded. Chris thought he looked spectacularly nervous and befuddled. Doctor Baloo nodded. "I thought so. And Sarah, do ya take dis man to be yo' man until inevitable doom separates ya?"

Chris shook her head as Sarah agreed. Baloo certainly wasn't making this easy on the two, what with the damning consequences he posed at the end of each question. Since neither Ragetti nor Sarah had a ring for the other, Baloo found a scarf, cut it in two, and tied it around their left wrists as the token of their love. "Fine den." Baloo responded to Sarah and he made sure the cloth on her wrist was snug. "Ya two are man and wife. Kiss yo' bride and get off of my beach!" Baloo turned and walked back inside of his hut as Ragetti pecked Sarah on the lips and the crew of the _Black Pearl_ roared with cheers. The bride and groom turned to the pirates, grins upon their faces.

"Congratulations, Rags!" Chris yelled.

"Way to go Rags!" Anamaria cheered.

"Anchors aweigh!" Cotton's Parrot crowed. At that moment, Pintel and Athos suddenly wedged themselves through the crowd, their shoulders supporting yokes that led back to a rough wooden cart just big enough for two. Chris had no idea where they had procured the method of transportation, and she was fairly certain she didn't want to know.

"Get in!" Pintel commanded. Ragetti handed his bride up into the cart first before shortly following. Once they were seated, Athos pawed the ground and threw his head like a horse. Anamaria beamed at him and he and Pintel then took off down the beach, heading for Tortuga's portside with the pirates following. The cart braked to a stop in front of the Faithful Bride, and once Ragetti and Sarah had climbed down from the cart, Pintel and Athos abandoned their yokes and all entered the tavern to celebrate.

Drink was passed around in liberal quantities, and the populace of the place soon consisted of drunk happy (and some singing) pirates. Athos pulled out a flute he had bought and started to circle Anamaria, playing a tune as he did. She smiled dreamily at the younger man and leaned a cheek upon her hand. Chris and Jack, who had started out in separate seats soon found them sharing the same chair, with Chris sitting upon Jack's lap facing him. The alcohol and loss of inhibitions experienced with the drink soon caused their lips to have a heated conversation with one another as the festivities continued.

The night wore on, and several people filtered out of the tavern, but most of the _Black Pearl_'s crew had stayed. Ragetti and Sarah retired to her room in the tavern for the night, and that's when Jack pulled away from Chris. Chris' hair had come loose and was framing her face. Her captain looked up at her, traced her jaw line with his finger, and then placed both hands on her shoulders.

"Well, Chris," Jack said, grinning. He ran his tan and bony hand up and down Chris' arms and shoulders before ducking under her veil of hair. "I'll be in my cabin, lass." He whispered into her ear before grazing his lips along her cheek. Jack lifted Chris off of his lap, toasted the absent couple with what was left in his mug, and exited the tavern. Chris, in her drunken stupor, stumbled over a few chairs and was about to leave the tavern when an insistent screech caught her attention. Loki climbed up her trousers and shirt before perching on her shoulder. With a wave to the others, Chris followed Jack out of the tavern.

While in her right mind she would certainly have not entertained the thought of visiting Jack in his cabin during the night, she had perhaps had a few drinks too many and so her judgment wasn't what it ought to be. As she ventured from the tavern, Chris didn't know if it was the fact that Tortuga was unusually dark and quiet or the liquor she had imbibed but she could not get her bearings. Within fifteen minutes of toddling around and going down random streets, Chris tiredly leaned against the dirty brick wall of a stable. She was very drowsy… Perhaps if she closed her eyes for a few minutes she could gain her bearings… She'd just take a nap, and then she'd find the _Pearl_ and everything would be alright…

Several seconds after her eyelids closed, Chris slowly slid down the wall to a sitting position, gentle snoring issuing from her mouth. Loki let out a concerned chirp and jumped to the ground. Looking at Chris, he cocked his head to the side and let out a small shriek. When Chris didn't wake up, Loki loped forward and curled up in Chris' lap, soon falling asleep as well.

Shortly before dawn, two figures exited the tavern across from where Chris had slumped over. One was shorter than the other, walked with a limp, and had yellow hair. The second man was tall and possessed thick black curls on his scalp, and had a very strong manly face. He might be considered an Adonis among men, except for the fact that his right hand was a stump. The pair stretched and yawned, giving themselves a few scratches as they began to amble away from the tavern. As they walked, the tall man's eyes scanned the street and fell upon the sleeping form of Chris. He disregarded her for a second but then did a double take. He looked upon her sleeping face and grinned. He poked his companion and said, "Look what we have here." He stopped and pointed at Chris with his stump.

The other man screwed up his face. "So? She's wearing trousers; they're not accessible like a skirt."

The tall man leered. "She's the one who took me hand. I'm not interested in ravaging her… yet."

"Then what are you thinking?" The man licked his lips. "We shouldn't let this bit of strumpet go to waste."

The tall one thought for a moment. "Do we still have those manacles attached to the spikes in the brig? You know, the ones we drive into the ground?"

"Aye."

The tall man smiled. "Bring them, candles, buckets, and anything that looks extraordinarily painful to the cavern we found the other day."

The other man nodded and looked back at the unconscious woman. "And the girl? You can't well carry her alone."

The tall man's face darkened and he slapped his companion with his left hand. "I can manage!" he hissed, "Now do as I say or you'll not get any bit of her before I'm done!" The shorter man scuttled away, holding his head as he did. The taller man stepped towards Chris. When his shadow fell over Chris' body, Loki awoke with a screech. He looked up at the stranger and growled in warning, his teeth bared.

"Away, you mangy beast!" The man shooed Loki away with by kicking at him with the toe of his boot. Loki bounded into the shadows and the tall man bent over Chris. Slowly and gently, so as not to wake the sleeping woman, the man slowly hoisted her onto his back, so his hand rested upon her backside and his stump held her behind the knee. She did not awake. "That's right dear, get your rest." He growled. "It's the last you'll get."

Jack had fallen asleep waiting for Chris to come to his cabin and he awoke the next morning when the sun was already high in the sky. He had a nasty headache from the massive amount of alcohol imbibed the night before, and when he pulled himself to his feet and remembered just why he was waking up alone, his first thought was to deliver a similar headache to Chris. Jack exited his cabin and headed into the forecastle. Upon arrival at Chris' cabin he pounded on the door as hard as he could before throwing it open. He greeted cheerfully (and loudly), "Morning Chris! I noticed ye didn't join me last night, so I fancied—" He froze as he realized that Chris' bed was empty and her monkey wasn't there. "Well bollocks." He kicked a stray article of clothing that lay on the floor.

He went up to the galley to get some food in him and found only Gibbs there feasting on a few bananas. "Mornin', captain." He greeted, offering Jack one.

He accepted and peeled it. "Ye've not seen Chris, have ye? I want to give her a piece o' my mind." Jack took a bite of the fruit.

Gibbs frowned and swallowed the mouthful of banana he had been chewing. "Why's that? She left the tavern after ye, and I figured you two were—" He stopped and blushed a maroon color, "—together. Was it really that disappointing?"

Jack arched an eyebrow at his first mate. "She never joined me last night, and if she were here, I'm pretty sure she'd be partway through neuterin' ye for sayin' that."

Gibbs flushed a deeper color. "Well, I've not seen her." He said, helping himself to another banana.

"Odd." Jack finished his banana. "Well, maybe Pintel or Anamaria know where she is." Jack clapped his first mate on the back. "Shore leave's extended until tomorrow evenin'. I don't think it's right to tear Ragetti from his bride so soon, and we deserve a rest, eh?"

"Aye, captain." Gibbs replied. Jack then exited the cabin and after he questioned Marty, Cotton, and Anamaria, he established that no one else had seen Chris after she left the tavern. A small worm of worry awoke in the back of his mind, but he pushed it away. _She probably just passed out in an alley…_ Jack thought. It had never happened before, but hey, there was a first time for everything. Jack recruited Athos to help him look for, if not help carry, Chris and they set off into the port, faithful that they'd find the woman before too long.

Chris never remembered her bed being so hard. And lumpy. She tried to settle herself down into her mattress, but it did not budge one inch. _Mayhap I should get it re-stuffed…_ She thought to herself right before a good amount of water was thrown upon her. Letting out a yell, Chris tried to raise her arms against the water, but found she could not. They would not move. Her eyes stayed closed against the water, but Chris deduced that it must have been Jack in recompense for her not following him to his cabin the night before. Another torrent of water hit her and she spluttered. "Jack, stop —!"

"Wrong!" Another gush of water flowed over her. "WRONG!" A wave of water slapped her in the face and then subsided. Chris spat what water had made it into her mouth out and tried to wipe her eyes. There was pressure on her wrists, and once more she realized she could not more her arms. That was odd, and then she realized she was not lying down but sitting up. She opened her eyes, blinked away the water, and observed her surroundings. Chris could see she was somewhere dark, but it had a faint light cast by a single candle sitting somewhere above. Her legs were sticking out in front of her; manacles were attached to her wrists, the chains pulled taught by spikes driven deep into rock. Chris quickly realized she was inside of a cave, and standing before her was a man with one hand. By his side were several empty buckets. Well, now she knew where the water had come from. And she couldn't help but know that she recognized this man from somewhere.

"Morning, love." The man greeted. Chris did not return his greeting. "Never expected I'd run across you again, leastways, not as easily as I did." The man he crouched down and leaned forward, his face inches from Chris'. His breath was something most foul.

Chris wrinkled her nose and asked, "Who the Hell are you?"

The man's face quickly twisted into a mask of anger. "Do you cut off the hands of so many men—" At this point he grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back. He leaned over her face and Chris noticed could see the pores of his skin he was so close, "—that you lose TRACK of them?"

She realized why he looked familiar. She had never thought she would see the man again after Granadilla. "You're Black Bart." Chris stated, a certain pitiful tone in her voice.

Bart released her hair and straightened up. "There we go. Happy to see me, darling?"

Chris stared straight up at him, trying to keep her face neutral. This was bad, this was so bad. She needed to get out of the cave as soon as possible. "Can't say I am."

Bart grinned. "I thought so. Good. I wouldn't have it any other way." Bart turned and vanished into a dark passage. Now that Chris' eyes had adjusted, she saw that she was in a small cavern chamber with a single entrance to it: the dark passage Bart had just entered. Up above her were grooves in the rock, where the single candle sat. The spikes attached to her manacles were driven in deep. Chris tried to pull on them, but Bart's voice echoed from the darkness, "Don't even try it. I doubt even my man and I could remove those without a hammer."

Chris looked into the darkness, trying to appear defiant and unafraid. "What are ye fixin' to do with me?"

There was no immediate answer. After a few minutes, she saw a light coming towards her from the passage. Bart entered carrying wooden candelabra and, if Chris wasn't mistaken, a spool of line and some needle. She also had seen that a rope was strung up in the passage to be used as a guide. Did he travel so deep into the cave that he needed help to find his way out?

"This method," Bart sat the candelabra onto one of the grooves in the rock so that the chamber was illuminated much greater. "I haven't tried it before. I'm especially interested to see what effect it takes on someone like you: a strong-spirited, cruel woman." Bart's eyes pawed at Chris' clothed bosom. "But a fine looking woman all the same." He picked up the spool of line and the needle. Chris watched in silence as he threaded the needle while humming a cheery tune. When he was done, he walked forward, needle in hand, and quickly sat upon her legs so that she couldn't move them. "Don't want to be on the wrong end of those."He commented, smiling at Chris. "Well…" He stuck the needle into the side of Chris' trouser leg and now with his hand free, ran his fingers up her clothed thigh. "If they were wrapped around me, I might beg to differ."

Chris jerked her head forward, trying to use her forehead to strike any blow against Bart. It didn't work. "Get your filthy hands off of me!" She demanded.

Bart tutted. "You aren't in any position to make demands." He looked to Chris left arm, held horizontally straight because of the tightness of the manacles' chain. He rolled her sleeve up and ran his hand up the soft under-flesh of her arm. "Mmm… Smooth." He grinned at her and was met with a stony stare. The man plucked the needle from Chris' trousers and poised the business end of the needle so that if he began sewing, the needle would enter horizontally. He grinned at her and then plunged the needle in. Chris wanted to be strong, whatever he did, so she bit her lip and refused to let out any vocalization of pain as Bart sewed right beneath her skin in a zigzag pattern from the back of her wrist to the crook of her elbow, at which point he ran out of line, save for the few inches that hung from the beginning point.

While it was painful, Chris had experienced worse. "If my governess were here, she'd teach you a thing or two about embroidery." She sneered. "Is that it? Is that your big punishment? Consider my lesson learned."

"No." Bart wrapped the line from the beginning around his fingers and used his stump to steady the needle. His eyes sparkled when he spoke again. "This is." With a sadistic smile, Bart wrenched the thread upwards. The skin over the thread was ripped open and scarlet blood gushed out as soon as the skin had been torn.

While Chris had tried to be brave before, the pain of this brutal wounding was too much for her, and she let out a scream that had never been matched before in volume and anguish. Her mouth gaped and she gasped for breath as she felt warm blood drip from her arm and heard it land like drops of heavy rain upon the cave floor. She looked at Black Bart, who possessed a satisfied and twisted smirk of pleasure on his face while he watched her reaction. She had never before wanted to destroy a person as much as she did right now.

Bart watched the blood dribble from Chris' arm, his smirk softening to the smile of a man who treasured what he was observing. He reached his hand forward and his fingers caught a drop or two of blood and he rubbed it between his fingers. "Lovely," he whispered, "So lovely."

Jack did know where else to look. He and Athos had checked the Faithful Bride, they had roamed the streets, they even went to Tortuga's brothels (Jack made note not to mention that to Chris), but they could not find head nor tail of Chris. And if they asked whether or not anyone had seen the quartermaster, the answer was always a resounding, "No." Athos and Jack came full circle to the Faithful Bride and paused.

"Maybe she's returned to the _Pearl_ since we left." Athos suggested.

"If she did, I am going to be **so **irritated." Jack sighed. He shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun as a woman in a yellow dress exited the Faithful Bride, her hair done up and ringlets framing her face. Giselle saw Jack and sauntered over to him.

"Jack! Come inside, buy me a drink!" She bade, grabbing for his hand. Since Chris and Jack had began courting and gone into port as such, Giselle had been casting lustful, lingering glances Jack's way, and while Chris would not visit Jack's cabin, he wasn't going to take Giselle in Chris' place.

"I'm a bit busy, Giselle." Jack replied. He looked to Athos. "Go and see if she is on the _Pearl_ and then come back, would ye?" Athos knuckled his brow and set off for the pier.

"Busy, ha! Where's Christy?" Giselle asked, running a hand over Jack's shoulders. "Does she take care of you," She leaned in to whisper the following, "Like I can?" She bounced her eyebrows devilishly and her hand reached a bit low for Jack's comfort.

"Easy on the goods, Giselle." Jack pulled himself away from the woman and put both hands up in front of him, the middle fingers touching his thumbs. "I don't know where she is and I'd appreciate it if ye'd keep yer hands to yerself."

"Jack, you're just all work and no play since ye starting courting Christy." Giselle said, her lips pouting. "Come, buy me a drink."

Jack stared at Giselle and said, "Woman, I do not plan on buying you a drink now or in the near future, so get off it and leave me be!" In response, he received Giselle's customary slap and she flounced back inside the Faithful Bride. Jack shook his jaw back and forth and touched it just as Athos returned. "She there?" Jack asked. Athos shook his head and the captain sighed. "Come on, mate. I'm sure there are other places we could look."

Back in the caves, Black Bart had continued his method upon Chris. Her entire left arm no longer appeared to have skin, but seemed to be covered in blood and ripped flesh. Tear streaks ran down Chris' face and glistened in the light from the candles. She had tried, she had tried so hard not to cry. She could accept the pain, she could accept the blood and the torn flesh, but she did not want to cry like a damn woman. The third time, though, Chris could not keep the tears back, and Bart rejoiced in them.

"Feeling hopeless yet?" He mocked. "Feeling so very alone?" He cackled.

Chris gritted her teeth and snarled, "My captain is going to kick your ass if I don't get to you first!" This wasn't very intimidating considering how much she was bleeding and the tears that were streaming from her eyes.

Bart laughed. "Your captain doesn't care about you. I bet he thinks you abandoned ship. And when you never return, he'll just take you for a mutinous coward." Chris went to make a retort, but Bart ripped the line from her skin once more. Every time he ripped out the stitches, Chris could not help but scream until her voice would no longer support the vocalization. Bart would wait for this, listening intently and appearing to savor her screams. He would touch her blood and her tears with her fingertips, rejoicing in their presence. When her tears were almost dry and the blood had darkened in color and slowed in movement, Black Bart would begin sewing again. Finally, Bart seemed to be satisfied. He plucked up the bloody thread and needle and stood.

"Are ye done with me?" Chris asked, doing her best to appear bold. "Have ye gotten your revenge yet?"

"Hell no." Bart grinned. "I'm just getting started. That was just a spirit breaker." He took a few candles out of his pocket and lit them from the candles that had burned low in the candelabra. He leaned over to place then in the grooves in the rock. Chris then noticed that he was standing over her legs and no longer pinning them. He had made a mistake, and Chris had to do what she could with it.

Instantly, Chris swiped both legs underneath the man. "It didn't work!" She crowed triumphantly as he fell, lit candles raining down with him. Once he was on the cavern floor, Chris kicked him as very hard as she could. Considering her bare feet, they didn't do much damage but she got lucky and one of her heels connected with the man's left eye socket.

"_OW_! **RUDDY BITCH**!" Bart grabbed her legs and gave them a shove to the side. He pulled himself to kneel upon them and then reached up, grabbing the candelabra. He throttled the woman with it, sending molten wax spraying and candles falling as he brought it crashing down upon the woman no less than three times. When he was done, he stood and threw the candelabra to the ground, where it broke into pieces. "That was a bad decision, you little bitch!" Bart spat upon her. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head backwards as he did before. "I was thinking about letting you leave this world unsoiled. You just changed that." He released her hair. "While I doubt you're very fresh, I'm going to enjoy making you cry." With that, he climbed off of her and exited the chamber, his stump raised to nurse his left eye.

Chris breathed in a long shuddering breath and, as best as she could, rubbed the spit off of her face and onto her shoulders. Tears dribbled down her face and she sniffed to keep snot from running onto her lips though, honestly, her cleanliness was the least of her worries right now. The blood on her arm was beginning to dry and the molten wax that had sprayed her was becoming hard. Her head reeled from the candelabra blows, and she could not help but think things were looking downright dismal.

_No, No, you stop that right now, girl. That's what he wants. _"Limy bastard..." She whispered, her spirits rising only slightly. Things were looking bad, and she needed to do something. She looked to the spikes that were driven into the rock. Black Bart had said something about the difficulty of removing them… Well, she'd just see about that, wouldn't she?

Chris listened for a few minutes to make sure Bart wasn't coming back, but then she bit her lip and furrowed her brow. She knew she couldn't rely on the strength of her left arm anymore, it was compromised. So she leaned to her left, her fingers wrapping around the chain of her right manacle, and she pulled. Nothing happened. Chris leaned even further, putting as much weight as she could onto the chain, and she pulled harder. Still nothing.

"Stupid bloody thing!" Chris pulled against her right manacle again, grunting. The spike still did not budge. She began to panic. "I am not going to die because a stupid _BLOODY_ stake wouldn't _BLOODY_ _MOVE_!" Chris growled to no one at all. She strained so hard that she heard a popping sound in her shoulder and realized that she could pop her shoulder out of place, and she did not need that right now. Hope fading and her spirit dropping, Chris eased up and her head dropped forward onto her chest.

She didn't want to die in this cave at the torturous hands of some insane man that she had wounded. She didn't want her journey to end here, alone, and so very far away from those she cared about. More tears began dribbling down her cheeks. Chris knew that everyone's time came whether they were ready or not, but she did not want that time to be now. Not now… She wished that she could at least see Jack one last time. If she could see him one last time and have a final kiss, maybe… maybe it wouldn't be so bad…

_No! You stop that right now, woman! That is defeatist talk! You put your back into these spikes and you decide how this turns out, not Bart!_ Chris breathed in sharply through her nose, taking succor in these thoughts. She turned to look at the spike that secured her right manacle. Her teeth gritted and her lips curled in a snarl, Chris swung her feet around and brought them to brace on the chamber wall. She counted to three in her head and pulled with all her might against her bonds. There was a cracking noise, a plume of dust, and then suddenly the spike was free from the rocks and clattered on the floor.

Chris stared at the spike in disbelief and then a shocking rush of euphoria overwhelmed her and she began laughing. "Ha. Ha! HA!" Chris pulled herself back into a sitting position and giggled amorously. "_HA_!" Through her giggles she heard footsteps and her eyes widened in horror. She picked the stake up and shoved it back in the rock, drawing any slack chain in between her fingers so that it appeared taught.

"What are you laughing at?" Bart hissed, emerging in the cave. Already his eye bore a shiner from Chris' heel.

Chris gave him her best impersonation of Jack she could muster and grinned, "Did ye know that 'Bart' rhymes with 'tart?' Funny ol' world, in'it?" She giggled and threw him a crazy grin, rolling her eyes into her head. Bart crossed to her, staying clear of her legs, but was within reach to smack her, which he did.

"Shut your gob! I have business to attend to." He disappeared back into the passage and Chris went to work on yanking out the right stake.

The sun had meanwhile sunk in the sky, and still, Jack and Athos found no sign of Chris. "Maybe we should just go back to the _Black Pearl_, Jack." Athos suggested. Jack shrugged and they continued stumbling down their current street. Their feet ached, and Athos' stomach was rumbling noticeably.

Jack sighed heavily. "Aye. If she is at the ship after all this time... Chris is not going to sleep a wink tonight."

"Kind of an unorthodox punishment, eh captain?" Athos asked. Jack looked sideways at him and laughed, shaking his head.

"Would ye think the same if ye were Anamaria's captain?" That shut the lad up. "Come on, back to the _Pearl_." The two turned and began trudging towards the harbor, and as they rounded a building with a sloping roof, something furry jumped from above onto Jack's head. This was, to say the least, alarming.

"Get it off me!" Jack demanded, throwing his hands up to bat the beast away. Athos jumped up and tried to pull the hairy thing from Jack's head when he noticed what it was.

"It's Loki, mate!" Athos yelled over Jack's cursing at the beast and the shrieks issuing from the chimps' mouth.

"Aghgagaagahg!" Jack howled, finally seizing Loki by the tail and pulling him forward to survey him. The monkey shrieked and scrambled out of Jack's grip, shrieked once more, and then took off. Loki had been with Chris the previous night, and wherever Chris was, Loki was never far behind if he could help it. "Follow that monkey!" Jack commanded, and he and Athos kicked up their heels and stayed hot on Loki's tail.

The monkey led them out of Tortuga and into the surrounding trees and jungle. "Dirty ape... Where is he taking us?" Athos gasped as Loki plunged through thick foliage and the captain and sailor plowed through it, trying to avoid getting tripped up by roots and scratched by brambles. Jack did not reply. Athos continued. "Have you thought that maybe he isn't leading us to Chris at all... And maybe you just followed him thinking he would?"

"I know this bloody monkey! It's devoted to Chris, for reasons I know not, and I'm thinkin' that he wouldn't leave her, boy! At least not for long!" Athos was a bit taken aback by the ferocity of Jack's argument, and in being so, he said no more. The pair followed the monkey through the trees and foliage until they came to a mound of rock rising from the earth, and in that mound of rock was the entrance to a cave. Jack and Athos crouched in the foliage, trying to catch their breath as Loki disappeared inside. "I'm sure he won't go too far, and we'd best enter prepared in case she fell down and hurt herself or something…" Jack said. "Ye know, gather our strength to get her out."

As soon as Jack had said, this, Loki came skidding out of the cave, alarmed squeals coming from his throat. Jack and Athos ducked lower in the bushes and watched as a man without a right hand and possessing a black, swollen left eye exited the cave. He picked up a rock and threw it at Loki. The monkey dodged the projectile, hissed, and rocketed up a tree's trunk. "Damn beast!" The man cursed, flinging another rock at the monkey. Loki screeched and fell from the tree. The man gave a triumphant yell and continued through the foliage in the opposite direction.

As soon as the man had departed, Jack stood and walked briskly to the spot where Loki had fallen. Chris loved that ape, even if he found the creature distasteful, and even if he was hurt he needed to be helped. Look as he might, though, he could not find the furred primate. "Jack! The cave!" Athos called from the bushes. Jack turned and saw Loki loping into the cave's entrance, chittering as he went. Jack returned to Athos' side.

"C'mon mate, let's go." Jack said, touching his pistol to make sure it was still in his sash. He didn't know what they would find within the cavern, but after some thought, Jack realized the man with the black eye was the same pirate from Granadilla who had lost his hand to Chris. This did not bode well.

Within the cavern it was dim with light becoming nonexistent the further into the cavern Athos and Jack tried to look. They did, however, find a rope strung up in the cave, and Jack could only think it was used as a guide. "Let's take this and follow it back." Jack said. He and Athos ran the rope through their hands as they continued in the dark. Eventually it became pitch black and they could do nothing but hope the rope was not leading them to their deaths. Jack and Athos could not see anything, but they rather felt each other's presence as they continued into the darkness. Every now and then they would hear a noise like a flutter, caused by bats overhead or who knew what, but finally they saw a faint glimmer of light ahead.

Chris could not get the left stake out. She had pulled and pulled with all her might, even causing the dried blood of her wounds to open up through the effort. She had taken the right stake and attempted to chip away at the rock but her efforts were fruitless. Chris finally just leaned back, sweat glistening on her forehead in the soft candle light and blood running down her arm. She wondered if she should just accept that she would die here, alone and tortured by a deranged man. She was just about ready to abandon all hope when Loki suddenly loped into the cavern and sat down on his hind legs. He looked behind him and let out a mad chittering sound.

Chris' jaw dropped. "Loki? Oh Loki, ye little demon spawn!" She squealed, reaching forward for him. Loki cocked his head to the side and circled around her, looking as though he was very nervous to come near her. He sniffed the air and let out a melancholy noise. "Come here…" Chris bade. Loki would not, and then Chris noticed she was hearing footsteps drawing near. She panicked, not knowing how she could put the stake back into the rock in time, nor what would happen to Loki when two familiar pirates entered the chamber. Chris found herself looking up in a stupor of relief at her captain and Athos. "Jack! Athos! I-I..." Chris stuttered, and all of the sudden she was overcome with tears of relief. "Oh thank God!" Damn it, she was acting like a woman again!

Athos stared at her, dumbfounded, as Jack dropped to his knees next to Chris. "Blazes! Chris... Lord, what in the blue seas happened to you?" His eyes strayed on her raw arm.

"I'd rather talk about it when I'm not here." Chris said insistently, wiping tears from her face with her freed hand. "I need help with the left stake." Jack reached forward and coiled some of the left chain around his arm.

"On three, love." He whispered. Athos did not help, he just stared in shock. Jack counted to three and he and Chris put all their weight into trying to pull the stake out. Nothing happened. "Damn, that's really in there."

Chris looked up at Jack as he pulled on the chain once more. She looked at his face etched with determination, his lips pressed together, and his slightly damp bandana. She remembered how she wanted to see him one last time if she was going to die today. Was her wish coming true? Were they going to be unable to pull the stake from the rock, and was she going to die? Chris did not want to die; she didn't want to leave Jack. The woman looked up at her beau, and before she could really process what she was going to say, the words, "I love you," slipped from her lips. As soon as she tasted the words, she bit her tongue and puffed up her cheeks. Did she _really_ just tell the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow that she loved him?

Jack lost his grip on the chain and looked at her, his mouth gaping. He promptly shut it and say, "Chris, _dammit_, if ye think ye're going to die–"

"She's absolutely correct." There was the sound of something being hit, and Athos suddenly slumped to the ground. Chris and Jack looked to see that Black Bart had come from the passage holding a heavy tree limb. He had cracked Athos over the head with it and now he hoisted it onto his shoulder. "I see you've received company."

Without hesitation, Jack pulled his pistol out from his sash and aimed for Bart. The man whipped the tree limb forth and knocked the pistol from Jack's hands before swinging it back and catching Jack on his jaw. Jack splayed across Chris' legs, blood dribbling from his mouth.

"Jack!" Chris cried out. Black Bart dropped the tree limb and bore down upon Jack and hauled him up by the scruff of his neck. Jack was kneeling before Chris, his head rolling onto his chest, and Black Bart leaned in and whispered in Jack's ear loud enough for Chris to hear.

"I'm gonna kill your girl..." He grinned and threw Jack down onto the cavern floor. "But not until we've had a little bit of fun." Bart picked up the tree limb and swung it through the air. "But first, I'm going to make her watch as I bash your brains in!" With that, Bart grinned maniacally and raised the tree limb.

"No you don't you **bastard**!" Chris vaulted herself at Bart, only to be jerked backwards when she reached the end of her chain. She cried out as the jerked opened up the dried wounds, but she kicked up one of her legs and landed a well-placed kick right into Bart's spine. The man stumbled forward and swung around, bringing the tree limb with him. Chris ducked and it hit the cave wall.

Bart's face was twisted into a malicious snarl. "You want to distract me so I won't kill him." He hissed. "I'll deal with you after." He turned back to Jack and raised the tree limb.

Chris was in a blind panic. She could not let this man kill her captain. She couldn't, she wouldn't, she would stop Black Bart from hurting Jack or anyone else if it meant her own life; she knew that. She could not just sit idly by while he destroyed Jack, her captain, the man who was her best friend, the man who – the man who she loved.

Chris grabbed the right spike and stood. She held the head of the spike in her hand and vaulted at Black Bart just as he was about to bring the tree limb crashing down. She could not reach very far with her left arm tethered to the rock, but she hooked her left foot around Bart's leg and with a vicious thrust, she heaved the spike into Black Bart's back right between two ribs. Black Bart froze gasped as scarlet blood seeped from the wound, and Chris could only figure she had hit a lung. The tree limb fell from his hand and toppled down behind him, barely missing the woman. Black Bart's eyes goggled, his mouth gasped for air, and he could not make a sound. He awkwardly tried to grab behind him and pull the stake out, but he could not. He made an odd gurgling sound before crashing to the cavern ground, pulling Chris with him.

Chris stared at the body of the pirate, motionless yet still intimidating. This man had tortured her for hours, and he had tried to kill Jack and wanted to kill her. She couldn't believe he was dead. Loki, unnoticed during this entire exchange, hissed at the corpse from where he stood huddled against the chamber wall. Chris began to weep and she didn't know why. She didn't know if it was from relief or shock, or just the gravity of everything that had happened to her this day finally hitting her. She wept, her chest shaking with cries, and she doubled over, wishing she could find a hole and die.

"Chris? Chris…" Jack had pulled himself to his feet, slightly unsteady from the blow to his jaw, and now he kneeled next to his quartermaster. "Chris… Chris, hold it together for me love, hold it together." He soothed, rubbing her back. "We need to get you out of this cave, and we need to bring Athos with us." His only response was Chris' chest shaking with sobs. "Chris, I need you to trust me. Chris?" He gently drew her face up so that she could look at him. "I'm going to take care of you, Chris. I'm going to get you out of here. You just have to help me until we get back to Tortuga, then I'll take care of you and you can cry all you want. But now I need you to be the woman I know you are, savvy?" Chris blinked her blue eyes and nodded. "Alright. First thing, let's get this other spike out of the rock…"

After using Black Bart's tree limb for added force, the left spike was finally released from the rock. After that, Jack slapped Athos awake because he figured he wouldn't do a very good job of carrying Athos and supporting Chris. Chris might not need support, but after everything she had went through, Jack didn't really want to rely on her physical strength. With Athos conscious once more, the three pirates and monkey began the venture from the cave.

Chris was shaky and it seemed that her mental state was broken at the very least. She held onto Jack's hand like it was the only thing anchoring her on earth as they followed the rope through the cavern's passageways and finally reaching the entrance. Upon exiting the cave, Chris collapsed. It was as if she couldn't physically support herself anymore and, in collapsing, she ground her arm into the dirt. Jack cursed and lifted Chris up, carrying her like he would a child as he, Athos, and Loki ventured back to Tortuga. They procured a cart to get back to the _Pearl_, and upon arrival those on the ship immediately went into a silent uproar. They said nothing, but the questioning glances and crowding of the three pirates, one who looked like she had been through a little slice of Hell, said more than words.

Jack ordered Gibbs to go into port and retrieve Doctor Baloo and bring him to his cabin. Then Jack took Chris into his cabin and laid her upon his bed. Loki leaped onto Chris' stomach and bared his teeth at Jack. "You mangy git, she's not well! Leave her be!" Jack commanded, swatting at the monkey with no real intent to hit him. The monkey bared his teeth once more and Jack decided to ignore him for now. He grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the bedside. Chris' eyes were open and she had stopped crying, but she was silent. Jack reached for Chris' right hand, which still was manacled with the chain and spike, but Chris recoiled. "What happened, love?" Jack asked. Chris was silent. "Love, ye need to talk about it. Ye'll feel better after ye do." There was still no reply from her, but there was a knock upon the door.

Jack stood, crossed his cabin, and opened it. Outside were assembled a good chunk of the crew with Pintel at the head. "Is she alright, captain?" Pintel asked, his eyebrows rising. Jack shook his head. "What happened?"

"I'm having a difficult time figuring that out meself, mates." Jack looked through the crowd and spotted Marty. They needed to do something about those manacles. "Marty, do ye have any tools that can cut manacles away in your carpentry supplies?"

"Of course, captain." Marty replied.

"Would you get them and come in?" Marty nodded and headed below as Jack turned to the rest of his crew. "When I know what happened to her, ye'll know. When Gibbs and Baloo come, will you see that they find us?" There was a murmur of assent, and Jack retreated into his cabin and closed the door. Chris still lay motionless upon the bed as Jack sat down once more. "Marty's going to come in soon and get these cuffs of ye, love." She didn't respond. "And then Baloo will come to fix up yer arm."

Chris rolled her head to look at her captain. "Don't let him sew my arm up."

Jack was shocked by this request. "Chris, how else are we going to close those wounds up?"

"I don't know, just please, _please_ don't let him sew it up." Tears started running from Chris' eyes and her face became screwed up in emotion. Jack didn't know if it was sadness or anger or some other foreign feeling.

"Chris, tell me what happened." Jack said softly, but firmly.

Chris breathed in a long shuddering breath. "He took line… And a needle." As she spoke, her sentences came out of different paces. Sometimes she would speak slowly and then speed up like the words were bursting from her mouth and couldn't be contained. She also began to shake. "He threaded the needle with the line and he took my arm." She gulped and used her left hand to demonstrate on her unharmed right arm. "And he sewed up my arm like this…" Chris' finger zigged a jagged pattern up her forearm. "And then when he ran out of line, he _pulled_…" Chris could no longer contain herself and she let out a sob before covering her face.

Jack could not just watch her lay upon his bed, wretched in loneliness and pain. He pulled himself up beside her and put an arm under her neck and around her shoulders even when she tried to pull away, and with his other arm he reached down and held her right arm. "I'm here; it's all over now, Chris. It's over, it's over girl." He tried to sooth. He squeezed her hand. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm here."

Chris' jaw trembled and she sniffed loudly. "I thought I'd never see you again. I wanted to see you…" She wept.

Jack had never seen Chris so vulnerable, so upset before. He raked her hair from her eyes with his fingers. "Shhh… I'm here, and you can see me as much as you want. I'm not going to leave you now." Chris quieted. "I just wish I had found you sooner, love." Jack kissed her temple, and she seemed to now take relish in his contact. "Chris…" Jack asked after a moment's silence. "Did you mean what you said?" Chris closed her eyes and tears rolled from them. "I love you too, love. Now hush and be still, I'm here." He thumbed her cheek, taking some tears from it as she did. "I'm here." And he was there while Marty cut the manacles from her wrists. He held her hand and tried to steady her when she unconsciously began shaking with fear when Doctor Baloo began sewing her arm up. And he was there when she finally slipped into a troubled sleep. Jack had said that he wouldn't leave, and he didn't.

oOo

Catch me as I fall  
Say you're here and it's all over now  
Speaking to the atmosphere  
No one's here and I fall into myself  
This truth drives me  
Into madness  
I know I can stop the pain  
If I will it all away

Don't turn away  
(Don't give in to the pain)  
Don't try to hide  
(Though they're screaming your name)  
Don't close your eyes  
(God knows what lies behind them)  
Don't turn out the light  
(Never sleep never die)

I'm frightened by what I see  
But somehow I know  
That there's much more to come  
Immobilized by my fear  
And soon to be  
Blinded by tears  
I can stop the pain  
If I will it all away

Don't turn away  
(Don't give in to the pain)  
Don't try to hide  
(Though they're screaming your name)  
Don't close your eyes  
(God knows what lies behind them)  
Don't turn out the light  
(Never sleep never die)

Fallen angels at my feet  
Whispered voices at my ear  
Death before my eyes  
Lying next to me I fear  
She beckons me  
Shall I give in  
Upon my end shall I begin  
Forsaking all I've fallen for  
I rise to meet the end

Don't turn away  
(Don't give in to the pain)  
Don't try to hide  
(Though they're screaming your name)  
Don't close your eyes  
(God knows what lies behind them)  
Don't turn out the light  
(Never sleep never die)

Servatis a pereculum  
Servatis a maleficum


	13. An Abundance of Turners

**Chapter Thirteen  
An Abundance of Turners**

A couple months later, the _Black Pearl_ was anchored off the shore of a small island (there seemed to be a never-ending number of small islands in the Caribbean) and its crew was currently on the island searching for food. The food supplies had suddenly ran out, partly from a leak the brig sprang after a battle with a corsair and partly from the swindling merchant who had sold the pirates barrels and bags of food that were either infested with pests or not really food at all, but sawdust. To try and make what food they had last, they had begun mixing the sawdust in with the oats and flour until a permanent fix could be found. Of course, this had all occurred far from any pirate-friendly port, so when the _Black Pearl_ approached this seemingly uninhabited but goodly-sized island, the ship had been anchored, a scant few were left on board to keep watch, and the rest were sent onto the island to search for food.

Ragetti and Pintel were grouped together with Chris and they headed into the dense foliage of the island to search for any banana or coconut trees, or anything else deemed edible. Neither Pintel nor Chris said much of anything at all; Pintel was busy searching trees and bushes for anything edible, and Chris was just depressed. As quartermaster, she was responsible for the sailors of the _Black Pearl_ alongside Jack, and she felt that what had happened was a disservice to her station and those whom she was supposed to be responsible for. When the food situation was first discovered, Jack announced that blame would be put upon no one but the crooked merchant who had sold the dodgy goods. Even so, Chris couldn't help but feel guilty.

The guilt must have reflected upon Chris' face as the sight of the shore and _Pearl _faded from in between the trees and then disappeared as a whole, for Ragetti brought Chris into a one armed hug. "It's alright, poppet. I don't mind wood-shaving bread at all if we can't find anyfink to eat. It's quite stimulatin' to me bowels."

Chris raised her eyebrows. Ragetti, who already had a skeletal frame, had become nothing but mere bones beneath skin since the food ran out. She knew he was lying, but his words comforted her just a bit. "The next time we're in port, I am buying everyone a dinner with thick, fine sausages, and…" Chris smacked her lips, "Fluffy biscuits with no weevils, and a whole bushel full of –"

"Chris, me stomach is already growlin' without your help!" Pintel growled. Chris clamped her mouth shut and she and the pirates continued. The leaves of the bushes and trees soon became so thick and hung so low that Chris resorted to using her rapier to cut away what she could to make the passage easier. It turned out a rapier wasn't an ideal instrument for such a practice, but they soldiered on. The deeper they ventured into the island, the darker it became beneath the foliage. Chris' arm eventually became tired, so Pintel started hacking away with his long sword, which proved more proficient than a rapier, and Chris fell back behind he and Ragetti. They still had not spotted a single tree yielding fruit. They decided to venture into a new direction, and after a moment or two, Ragetti stopped and Chris bumped into him. "Oi, Rags–!" Chris stumbled and caught herself before she took out not only herself but quite possibly the other two pirates in a fall. "What are ye—?"

"Didje hear that?" Ragetti asked, raising a hand to silence Chris.

"Hear what?" Pintel asked, turning to look behind him.

Ragetti cocked his head to the side. "That – That rattlin' noise."

Chris shook her head. She heard no such thing. "No. Pint?"

Pintel shrugged. "Me neither."

Ragetti stopped and looked at his companions, his wooden eye blank because the side with the pupil had swiveled to the inside of his skull. "But I heard—" He protested.

"No you didn't." Pintel cut him off angrily. "And we aren't doing a very good job looking for some grub just standing here, so let's get a move on!" Chris offered a smile to Ragetti, but Pintel was right. She knew her stomach was certainly growling, and they and the crew didn't have time to listen for phantom noises. Ragetti looked puzzled, but nonetheless turned and followed after Pintel.

As they continued, Chris thought she heard what Ragetti had been talking about, but only faintly. There did seem to be a rattling noise in the bushes ahead. She arched her eyebrow and was just about to alert her companions when she spotted a plantain tree through the bushes. Plantain was a banana-like fruit that hung in large bunches and usually required some cooking before consumption, but eating it raw was not unheard of. At the mere sight of the tree, Chris began to salivate.

"Oi! Rags, Pint! Look!" Chris pointed at the plantain tree and Pintel let out a cry of triumph just before all three of the pirates hustled through the foliage and underbrush. When they arrived at the tree, Pintel giddily hoisted Chris onto his shoulders so she could grab the lowest branch, and Ragetti began jumping from one foot to the other in joy. Chris swung herself onto the low branch, hanging by her stomach, and then grabbed the branch above, pulling her to a standing position. She unsheathed her rapier once more, and swung for the nearest clump of plantain. With a few cuts, it fell to the ground, and giving what could be taken as a war cry, Ragetti raised it over his head and up in the air a few times. Chris laughed, feeling very giddy and almost lightheaded, and swung for another clump, felling it too. When she spotted a third bunch, her ears heard the rattling noise once more. Looking around her eyes suddenly fell on a figure hunched in the tree right across from her.

The figure had eyes, and they were looking right at her. Chris' eyes widened in alarm, and her mouth opened in a yell just as her foot slipped from underneath her. Her rapier fell from her grasp, and her remaining leg hooked around the branch for a few seconds. She swung upside down and then fell from the tree and hit the ground, hard. Her vision went blurry and she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw spots.

"Poppet!"

"Poppet—!"

Pintel and Ragetti loped over, both holding their prizes of plantain. Chris looked around like a caged animal, her breathing suddenly erratic. She had seen something, she knew she had, and it had been unlike anything she had ever seen before. Just thinking back on it made her skin bubble with goose bumps. "Where is it? Where is it, where is it, where is it?" She asked. She had seemed a bit more jumpy since the incident with Black Bart in the caves by Tortuga, and this was one of those times paranoia seemed to take more of a hold than reason.

"What, poppet?" Ragetti asked, reaching forward with his bony hands to calm his friend.

"There was something with eyes, in the tr—" Chris looked and pointed up into the leaves of the other tree, and saw nothing where the figure had been. She squeezed her eyes shut and looked once more. There was still nothing.

"Nothing's there." Pintel stated plainly, albeit gently.

"Something was. It was there, and it was staring at me…" Chris touched her throat and her eyebrows knitted together in thought.

Ragetti looked to the other pirate and handed Pintel his bunch of plantain before reaching down to help Chris up. "Poppet, ye jus' need some sleep and some plantain. Let's go back to the _Pearl_..."

"I suppose." Chris did not sound convinced, but she allowed her friends to lead her back to the beach. As they arrived, Pintel and Ragetti hoisted the plantain into the air in victory. The other sailors came in a rush at the three pirates, prompting the quartermaster to threaten a lashing for anyone who didn't wait for the plantain to be doled out. After each sailor was given a finger of the fruit, there was nothing left of the plant bunches but the stalk. Chris found that Loki had stowed away on one of the jolly boats ashore and called the ape to her. They shared her single plantain, and as Chris chewed, she thought back on the pair of eyes she had seen. She _knew_ that she hadn't imagined them. Sure, since Black Bart and the caves… She had been having some awful nightmares, but nothing during the day. She wasn't crazy; she had seen a pair of eyes, even if Ragetti and Pintel didn't believe her.

Later that evening, the pirates headed back out to try and find something for dinner. Ragetti, Pintel, and Chris, this time with Loki in tow, returned to the plantain tree and cut down any bunches of plantain that still hung. Ragetti insisted that he do the job, and Chris had a suspicion it was because she had fallen from the tree earlier that day. The three ate their fill (after all, they seemed to be the only ones successful, and they needed their strength, didn't they?) and carted the plantain bunches back to beach for the others. As the fingers were passed out, Jack gave Chris her first smile and wink for what seemed like an eternity, and then supplied each of them with torches. "See what else you can find, but return before it gets too late. Alright?" He asked before chucking Chris underneath the chin. She agreed that they would.

The three pirates and single capuchin monkey delved deeper into the trees of the island. They passed the plantain tree and began cutting their own path in their search for food. Evening melted into night, and any stars that may have been out were covered by clouds. This seemed to alarm Loki, for he became a right git, scrambling every thirty seconds across Chris' shoulder to her opposite one, or scrambling over her head. The air became thick with moisture, and the clothes and faces of the pirates were soon dripping with humidity.

As Chris tried to calm her monkey and wiped at her face with her sleeve, Ragetti suggested, "Maybe we should 'ead back..." He sniffled. "It must be getting late... An' I don't feel so good 'bout this moisture."

"C'mon Rags, we just need to find another of those dandy fruit trees." Pintel urged, walking on ahead. "And don't worry 'bout this moisture – There's probably just a stream or summat nearby."

As soon as Pintel finished his sentence, a lightning bolt ripped across the sky, immediately accompanied by thunder. Loki let out a shriek and bolted from Chris' shoulders and into the trees. The quartermaster was certain they should head back, but she couldn't abandon her monkey in a strange jungle in the middle of the night. "Loki! Damnit, you little –!" Chris cursed before plunging into the trees after the screaming ape. Her torch flickered as she ran, casting eerie shadows all about.

"Poppet! I dun't fink that's such a good idea!" Ragetti objected, following after her. "He's a monkey! They live in the trees!"

"Ye two get your arses back here!" Pintel cursed. He looked around and then began following after them, finding no other solution.

"Loki, get back here!" Chris commanded into the darkness, slapping away branches that in turn slapped her back. A tree branch caught on her belt that held her rapier's scabbard and she jerked to a halt. Chris did not want to take the time to un-snag herself, so she simply undid her buckle and figured she'd find the belt on the way back. It was left hanging from the tree, and Ragetti almost smacked into the leather as he followed after the quartermaster. "Loki!" Chris called once more, and again, the heavens were gutted by a lightning bolt and thunder growled as a torrential downpour of rain suddenly gushed forth from the sky. Within minutes the ground was muddy and the visibility miniscule. Chris' torch, as well at the torches of the other two pirates, guttered and then went out.

Chris ducked underneath a felled log that had been perched in the low branches of two trees that stood together. This was the entrance to an irregular clearing that was almost a coliseum bordered by a circle of trees. Other felled logs wedged in between the branches of trees partitioned the clearing off from the rest of the forest. There was a chirruping from above and Chris looked up to just barely make out the shape of a monkey in the dark branches beyond.

"Loki, ye damn nuisance, get your hairy arse down here before I shoot it down!" Chris growled, and then remembered she left her belt with any weapons back on the tree. "Well, damn. Loki, get down here!" The shadow of Loki jumped to a different branch, and then through the rain, Chris heard the rattling noise. Frozen with dread, Chris looked warily around the edges of the clearing just as Pintel and Ragetti ducked underneath the log and joined her. Another bolt of lightning and clap of thundered ripped through the atmosphere.

"I swear I am going to make that ape into a nice meaty stew when we return to the _Pearl_." Pintel growled through the rain.

"Since we're going through all this trouble to get him, I very much doubt I'd let ye do that, mate." Chris replied, wiping rain from her eyes. Ragetti stepped forward.

"Loki! Loki, come here, come to Rags!" He tried to whistle in the rain, focusing up in the tree top. He snapped his fingers and shook his hand.

"I don't think the limy git's going to listen." Chris said, looking to her friend. "He didn't listen to me."

"But he likes me." Ragetti insisted. If Chris wasn't so mad at the ape, she would have been taken aback by this comment. The man with the wooden eye walked to the trunk of a tree and reached to the branches above. Trying to whistle and continuing to snap his fingers, Ragetti began to repeat, "Here, monkey monkey monkey!" in a soothing voice. The silhouette of the monkey descended from the branches, and Chris became very aware of the rattling noise once more. Ragetti leaned up, standing on his tip-toes in the thick mud, and then his leg all of the sudden slid from underneath him and collided with a felled tree. Letting out a howl of pain, Ragetti followed his leg into the mud, clutching the limb as howls of pain echoed throughout the clearing, even drowning out the sound of the rain and a roll of thunder. The monkey jumped into the higher branches at this.

"Aw, Rags!" Chris kneeled in the mud, trying to look at his foot in the darkness. Instead, she resorted to touch and felt that his ankle was twisted in a way it wasn't meant to be twisted. "Damn." She cursed. This did not look good. They had no light, Ragetti was hurt, and that damn monkey was still up in the trees! "I think yer ankle's broken." Ragetti let out a whimper of pain. Chris moved some of Ragetti's sodden hair from his forehead, rainwater streaming from the tip of her nose. "Pint, I think we'll have to carry him..." There was no reply. "Pintel?" She looked to the shadow that was Pintel. He was stone still, and then he let out a yell and bolted for the entrance. Not ducking in time, his head connected with the log perched between the two trees, and he fell in the mud with a squishy thud.

What had alarmed him? "What the—?" Chris asked aloud, and then she sensed someone else... She looked around and saw a dark shape moving towards them from the outside of the clearing. Her heart stopped beating for a few seconds, and Chris felt what warmness she had retained in her body promptly leave. "Oh lord..." She breathed. If that was some sort of bear or whatever was making that rattling noise, they were in a lot of trouble. Pintel was unconscious, Ragetti hurt, and Chris unarmed.

"What is it Poppet?" Ragetti asked, his teeth clenched in pain.

While she didn't have any weapons, that didn't mean the others didn't. "Rags… where is… your gun?" Chris asked, her voice very low.

"Me holster." Ragetti replied, his voice befuddled. Chris slowly pulled his mud-covered pistol from his holster and pointed it at the moving shape. She aimed to the right of it and squeezed the trigger. It didn't fire. The rain must have gotten to the powder. Well, the shape wouldn't know that, would it?

Chris stood and brandished the pistol at the shape, which had ducked underneath one of the logs and entered the clearing. "Get out of here!" She yelled.

"Hey, hey! Watch where you're shooting that thing!" The shape suddenly swooped down upon her and yanked the pistol from her hands. "You're going to kill someone!" Chris stopped moving, and as much as her brain screamed at her muscles, she could not bring herself to move, to punch, or to fight the figure. She was like a pillar of salt. "Now calm down, just calm down! Let's get some light." The shape said and it pulled something from its dark mass, and then it pulled out something else. There was the sound of a flint being struck and then the shape somehow managed to create a flame in the damp. The flame was then used to catch the wick of a lantern on fire and the shape replaced the flint back into its dark mass. "No need to fret, I'm here to help."

The shape hoisted the lantern above to cast a wider beam of light, and when it fell on his face Chris' first impression was that she was beholding a very shaggy and hairy Will Turner. He was quite a bit older than she had last seen him, though. At the sight of a familiar face, her muscles and tongue suddenly decided to work again. "William Turner, what the bloody **Hell** are you doing here?" She demanded, shoving his shoulder. "You almost gave me a fit!"

The man paused. "...How do you know my name?" He asked. "Hardly anyone knows me real name, and I have no bloody clue who you are." The man cocked his head to the side and after his eyes darting down to her chest, he said, "I'd definitely remember you. But just about everyone I knew called me Bill... Bootstrap Bill."

After that, Bootstrap Bill helped Chris take Pintel and Ragetti back to the place where he lived. He was dressed very oddly: his clothing was comprised of strips of animal hide piled upon each other, making him look bigger than he was. Around his wrists were bracelets that issued the rattling noise Chris had heard. And, she noticed, his clothing also enabled him to hang things from the strips, such as the lantern he had provided. Bootstrap Bill carried Pintel over his shoulders and Chris supported Ragetti as they walked, and the quartet slowly trudged through the mud and the rain to a cave opening set back in the trees. A warm glow flickered out from the cave, and Chris, if she wasn't mistaken, smelled the aroma of roasting meat wafting from inside. Her stomach growled, but her brain held her back. _Of course he had to live in a cave. He couldn't live in a bleedin' tree house or maybe a nice little hollow tree, no!_

They climbed a slight incline to the cave entrance and Bootstrap took Pintel inside. Chris heard a _whumpf_ and Bootstrap reappeared. "Go ahead in. There's parrot on a spit in there, and you're welcome to it."

Chris helped Ragetti to the entrance. "I, uh—" Chris watched cautiously as Ragetti used the cave wall to brace himself and then limped inside, "I think I'll just stay out here, thanks." She nodded just as another lightning bolt tore the sky and thunder followed it.

Bootstrap arched an eyebrow at this. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we have a small monsoon going on out here." He held up an already wet finger and let some more rain fall upon it. "See this wet stuff? It's called rain. You'll catch your death of cold if you stay out here."

"Really, I'm fine." Chris replied, shuffling her feet as she looked at the warm light flickering on the cave walls inside. It reminded her of the candlelight that had flickered inside the caves back in Tortuga. An involuntary shudder ran through her and she said, "I'd rather stay outside. Really."

Bootstrap shook his head and disappeared inside. Chris then planted herself in a sitting position outside the entrance. If she could help it, she planned to never enter a cave ever again. Pulling up her right sleeve, her eyes drank in the sight of her still healing arm. Thick black scabbing ran in lines over the flesh where Black Bart had practiced his sadistic embroidery upon her. The tears that had already healed had left scars in their wake. It wasn't long after Chris' arm had been stitched up properly by Doctor Baloo that Jack divulged a jagged scar upon his own left arm. The scar had looked as if someone had torn out the veins in his arm, leaving the long serrated scar behind. "See, Chris?" He asked, pulling his sleeve back down. "We all wear our scars, love. It's how we let them wear us that really matters." Chris' fingers traced the scabs that would soon enough become scars and she felt a strange emotion that wasn't quite fear or despair in the pit of her stomach.

"Nice lines you've got there." Bootstrap said as he returned from the interior of the cave, carrying a blanket made of several hides attached to four sticks. Chris twitched her sleeve back over her arm and watched as he placed the sticks in four well worn holes in the surrounding rock of the cave entrance. He strung the hide blanket over the poles, making a kind of canopy. "Sit here." He pointed. Chris accommodated his request. "There, now you won't catch your death of a cold." Satisfied, he ducked inside once more and returned with a steaming hunk of meat speared on a stick. Chris watched him carry it, an unabashedly ravenous gleam in her eyes. "Dinner time!"

As soon as he handed it over to Chris, she brought it to her lips and devoured it, ignoring the burns her mouth and lips received from the hot meat. Bootstrap watched her with an amused smile. Chris licked any remaining grease from the stick before using it to pick her teeth. She couldn't recall the last time she had eaten meat aboard the _Pearl_. "Thank you." She said, turning to Bootstrap. She caught some of the rain streaming from her canopy and washed her mouth with it.

"Don't mention it." The man sat next to her, his body turned towards the woman, and asked, "Now that you're fed and watered," He grinned as she smiled and wiped the rain drops from her lips, "How did you know my proper name?"

Chris tossed the stick to the side. Jack had told her of his old mate, Bootstrap Bill, who had supposedly been thrown into the sea with a cannon tied to him, but it looked as though he was, amazingly enough, alive and well on this island. Who else would claim to be Bootstrap Bill Turner if he had been thought to be dead for more than a decade? "Captain Jack Sparrow has told me of you." The man's eyes brightened. "And... I thought you were your son."

"So Jack isn't dead, is he? Good bloke Jack, always – Hang on." Bootstrap seemed to process the rest of what she had said. "Did you say...? You thought I was my son?" His expression now changed to one of bewilderment.

Chris nodded. "Will. He's a right nice chap. We became acquainted under dire circumstances, and he is a gentleman as well as a man of action." Oh, God. Suddenly she sounded like her brother would.

Bootstrap's face split into a grin. "How old is he now? I've lost count of the years..."

"He's in his twenties, I believe, and doing well. He's married." Chris replied. She didn't exactly know every detail about him, but just the facts should suffice for this man.

"Married?" Bootstrap echoed, suddenly looking as though he was far away.

"Aye. His bride is the governor of Jamaica's daughter." Chris couldn't help but smile at this. It would be a lot for the man to take in, but considering Will was only a blacksmith and part-time pirate, he had done quite well for himself.

"The governor's daughter!" Bootstrap exclaimed.

"And they have two children." Chris was afraid she had gone too far. For Bootstrap's face was suddenly white, and he stared down at the ground.

"I only saw him a few times as he grew up." Bootstrap said. "And then I sent a piece of the treasure to him... I reckon you know all about Barbossa and the Curse and whatnot if you're mates with Jack..." Chris nodded in agreement and Bootstrap continued. "And then those two," he jerked his head toward the cave, "Them and their lot threw me in the sea with a cannon... Thought I'd never see my boy again, but something odd happened as I sank down. I didn't drown. I then realized that the curse still applied to me as I sank into the depths, with darkness all around me. Not knowing the passage of days, weeks…" The man stared off into the distance for a moment before coming back to his story. "It took me some time, but I finally released myself, and then I saw this island when I broke the surface. I swam to it, and I've been here ever since. At first, I wasn't really bothered to do anything. Made me a shelter and killed a few boars for protection from cold – Though I couldn't feel it. But old habits die hard, I suppose. I didn't need to eat, drink, do anything... So for I don't know how long, I just explored this island, and learned its secrets...

"And then, one day, something changed... I was hungry, I was cold, and I could feel again!" Chris smiled as the man's face lit up with the joy of the memory of the day. "That was... Well, must've been years. And then I began to live off the land and did what I could to survive. It hasn't been too bad, but it's been lonely. I've been hoping maybe I could signal a passing ship, but so far it hasn't worked out." With this, Bootstrap's expression reverted to being glum and depressed. He looked up at her and asked, "So how did you and the two prats in the cave get here?"

Chris raised her eyebrows. "You don't know? After all the time you've been sneaky-sneaky, and that rattling noise –"

"Ah, you did hear my bracelets! Let's the boars know I'm coming; I love a good chase." Bootstrap grinned. Chris continued.

"...And after you made me fall out of the damn plantain tree –"

He laughed, his face lighting up once more. "Apologies. I haven't seen a woman for a long time. I wanted a closer look!"

Chris self consciously crossed her legs. "Turns out we were swindled on our food rations, so we anchored offshore and began searching for food."

"Ah." Bootstrap nodded sagely. "That's why you were robbing the plantain tree."

"We weren't robbing –" Chris let out an exasperated sigh. "I just want to make sure that Jack and his crew are fed. If that takes me tramping around in a forest and stripping all plantain trees bare, so be it!"

"Jack is here!" Bootstrap laughed and rubbed his hands together. "I thought maybe you two were just acquaintances... Or significant others, dare I say." He grinned and bounced his eyebrows.

Chris shook her head. He was just like every other pirate aboard the _Black Pearl_! This was going to drive her crazy. "Aye." She then realized that she knew his name, but he didn't know hers. "By the way, me name is Chris, and I am quartermaster of the _Black Pearl_. Apologies, all this commotion made me forget me manners." She offered her hand, and Bootstrap shook it.

"So Jack got the _Pearl_ back! Good." Bootstrap rubbed his chin. "Quartermaster, huh? That's a first to me, a woman holding that position and all."

"I'm made of tougher stuff than I look."

"Oh aye." He gave her a grin just as a moan of pain issued from the cave. "Jumping mermaids, I forgot, your mate has a broken ankle. I'd just leave it since he and his friend were part of the mob that dumped me into the ocean, but I don't suppose you'd like that, would you?"

Chris scowled. "No. While he may have done that, he's one of me best mates, and Jack took him aboard again, so I think that speaks louder than my words."

"Alright, let's go set it." Bootstrap stood and entered the cave, and Chris realized that if he was reluctant to set the broken ankle he would also be reluctant to carry Ragetti from the cave to be helped by Chris. She swallowed hard as she crossed to the cave entrance, startled by the falling rain after she left the cover of the canopy. She took a deep breath and entered the cave.

The cave had a somewhat homey and possessed a cheery aura. Blankets and hides were scattered around, there were some clay drawings upon the walls, and there were other items that Chris speculated Bootstrap had made or salvaged from the sea while he was under the curse adorning the edges of the cave. Ragetti lay by the fire, the bones of the parrot's wings and legs next to him. Pintel was still unconscious, and a small trail of blood seeped onto his bald scalp from a cut on his forehead, probably given to him by the log he had hit.

"Poppet... Is 'e gonna hurt me?" Ragetti asked as he spied Chris and Bootstrap examined his ankle.

"Aye, but only to fix yer foot." Chris found herself jumpy in the cave, no matter how bright a light the fire cast. "Don't worry, mate, it'll be over soon." Bootstrap had Chris shorten the small sticks he used for firewood while he set the bones. Chris blocked out Ragetti's yells of pain and the pops of bones as she broke the sticks. Her stomach churned with the sound of the yells, and her illogical mind though that Black Bart might emerge from the shadows holding a needle and line. The mere thought made her sick to her stomach and her knees quaked in fear. She held onto the sticks tightly, as though for support as the popping of bones and sounds of pain continued.

Once Bootstrap was done setting Ragetti's ankle, Chris made a splint out of the sticks by using a strip of hide. It appeared that the man had been stockpiling the strips that comprised his clothing, so there was a good amount on hand for the splint. With a few more strips, it was secure and Chris said, "'Night, then." She didn't take her time leaving the cave but rather walked as quickly as she could without running to the cover of the canopy. She sat down and felt her heart thundering in her chest. Trying to calm herself, she inhaled slow breaths of the cool, damp air. Chris soon fell asleep to the pitter-patter of raindrops on the hide overhead.

In the morning the rain had stopped, and so the once more conscious Pintel helped Bootstrap bring Ragetti outside and the four supped on leftover parrot for their breakfast. The sun was shining, there was a good wind, and everything looked absolutely beautiful. The trees and foliage of the jungle were lush and green, and some of the leaves still glistened with moisture. Just as the four finished eating, a muddy little creature loped up the incline and came to a halt at Chris' feet. It was Loki, his hair spiked up with dry mud and hard as rocks. "Who's this little bugger?" Bootstrap asked.

"He's my monkey and the reason why we were running and caterwauling through the trees last night, the little devil." Chris picked up the filthy ape and though her words were unkind, she was glad that he had rematerialized. Bootstrap told Chris that little rivulets of water poured down the side of the cave from a spring somewhere above, so she took her monkey, and against his protests, washed him until every clomp of mud was out of his hair. Once she released the freshly laundered ape, Loki gave Chris an indignant look and scrambled off once more. "We'll leave without you, I swear!" She cried after his retreating rump.

Chris returned to the three men and found only her fellow crewmates sitting outside. Pintel and Ragetti were fidgeting nervously with the knowledge that the man who had aided and rescued them was the same man who they sent to the bowels of the sea by cannon. Chris didn't say anything comforting, after all, these two men had committed a wrong against Bootstrap and he had helped them. They'd have to find their own way to quiet their troubled minds.

Bootstrap emerged from the cave, no longer wearing his hide-strip clothing. He was wearing an old fashioned shirt, a pair of old-fashioned breeches, and a pair of boots that looked to be hand-made. "What do you wager on doing?" Chris asked the man.

"Well, I'll help you back to your ship and..." He paused before continuing, "I think I may see if Jack would... You know... Take me to Will if I gave him all of me food storage. I have so many banana and plantain bunches it'd make a man go insane. No man should have to harbor that great an amount of fruit. Ever."

Chris snickered. "Will? That brat who –" Pintel began saying, but with an acid look from Bootstrap, he clammed up.

"I'm sure he'll be only too happy to take you, mate." Chris assured. "Get what ye need and let's go!"

The five set off around midday, Loki rematerializing and riding on Chris' shoulder while she and Pintel helped Ragetti walk. Bootstrap took everything he wanted from the cave that had been his home for so many years, along with all the food he could put on his back. Pintel and Chris also were carrying food, and that weight along with the task of helping Ragetti made their travel very slow and painstaking. When they reached the place where Loki had so aptly bounded off the night before, Chris remembered that she no longer wore her belt. Being a pirate, she would be ashamed to return to the _Black Pearl_ lacking her weapons.

"Damn..." She stopped Pintel and Bootstrap. "Me... What does Jack call them? Me... effects are in there stuck on a tree. I need to get them."

"No need." Bootstrap flung off his packs. "You stay here and I'll be back." He disappeared into the foliage for a few minutes while Ragetti, Pintel, and Chris rested, and returned with Chris' belt and sword. "What's my reward?" He asked, smiling cheekily.

"Oh thank you, you brave and gracious soul!" Chris cried, clasping her hands together. "To help such a poor and incapable female such as me is only too good of you, too –"

"Har, har, I get your point." Bootstrap said, pushing the belt to Chris. She accepted it, strapped it about her waist, and the travelers continued.

They arrived at the beach about the same time that the original three and monkey had left the day before. The smell of roasting meat was heavy in the air, and Chris saw a huge boar roasting on a spit. Almost everyone was rejoicing, but Jack in particular looked very weary and down-trodden.

"Oi Sparrow!" Chris called as she and her companions exited the tree line. He looked up from the mug of rum he had been nursing and his face brightened. He drained the mug and flung it elsewhere before bounding to the group. "Chris! Rags, Pintel, Monkey, and... Don't know you..." Jack said all at once, halting before them. He looked at Ragetti's splinted ankle and the goose egg that had swollen throughout the day on Pintel's forehead. "What the bloody Hell happened to Rags and Pintel?"

"We'll explain later." Chris said, "But for now, ye have to become reacquainted with Bootstrap Bill Turner."

Jack gave a quizzical look to Chris before looking at Bootstrap a little more closely. He jumped backward and exclaimed, "By Davy Jones's locker! Bootstrap Bill Turner!"

Bootstrap grinned. "You look good, Jack." The two men clapped each other on the back and Jack called for more rum, more boar, and to help the arrivals with their burdens before he and Bootstrap departed for the fire pit, already engaged in conversation. Pintel and Chris looked at each other as Anamaria and Gibbs joined the three and took their loads of fruit, and the pirates went to the fire to eat.

After Bootstrap and Jack talked (and drank) for most of the night, Bootstrap filled Jack in on what he wanted to do, and Jack (very inebriated by this point) exclaimed, "Why that's an amazing idea! Everyone to their posts! Swab the decks, haul out the sail, and I expect –!" No one would ever know what he expected, for he hiccupped and pitched face first into the sandy beach.

Chris and Bootstrap hauled Jack to his cabin and Bootstrap said, "I'm sure tons of things have changed since I've been here, but thank God Jack hasn't." Chris grinned and they tucked Jack in.

The next morning, with Bootstrap's food in the hold and all sailors aboard, the _Black Pearl_ set sail for Port Royale. Chris gave Bootstrap her cabin for the voyage and offered to help clean himself up. Water was boiled in the galley and a large barrel that formerly held rum was filled with the hot water and with the aid of Chris pouring water over Bootstrap's head, he was able to bathe standing up. Once he was cleaned, Chris borrowed the scissors she had given to Cotton for Christmas, and using them she trimmed Bootstrap's dark hair and beard down so that he would look presentable. She also pulled clothing from her chest of disguises until they found some more fashionable clothes for him to wear upon meeting his son.

After a week of having Bootstrap on the _Pearl_, Chris was regretful when they arrived at Port Royale to see the man go. His wittiness, stubbornness, and his hate of laziness made him likable in her eyes, and while he had been onboard, he had proved as good and as true a sailor as she ever did see. "But," she thought to herself, "He may just pop in, say hello to Will, pop out and then come back to the _Pearl_ and sail with us." But she knew she was fooling herself. He had a son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren to get to know. Chris knew she personally wouldn't abandon her progeny to sail if she hadn't known them for a good chunk of time.

The _Black Pearl_ hid in a different cove at Port Royale this time, this one closer to the house Elizabeth and Will lived in. Jack and Chris decided they would accompany Bootstrap to his son's home. They had to go through underbrush most of the way, but eventually they scaled a slope and came to the road that lead up to the house. The three entered the gates and Chris shook Bootstrap's hand and said, "Miss ye, mate."

Bootstrap smiled. "We'll meet again someday. After I get my second chance to have a family." He kissed Chris' hand and he and Jack turned to head up to the door while Chris stayed behind, crouching in the bushes that bordered the path. Jack and Chris decided it would be best for them to stay out of sight and just get this over with so they could head to Tortuga and restock the supplies of the _Pearl_. When the men reached steps, Jack rapped on the door loudly and then skipped from the steps, jumped into the air, and rolled into the bushes besides Chris.

"What the Hell, mate?" Chris asked, but Jack simply placed a finger to his lips and pointed to the door. They watched as the door opened, a maid answering. Bootstrap asked to see Will, and the maid left for a few seconds before Will returned with a toddler boy balanced on his hip. Chris thought it was the baby she had first met years ago, William Turner III, or Liam as they planned to call him.

"Yes?" He asked, looking at Bootstrap dubiously. He bounced the small one in his arms as he spoke.

"Will." Bootstrap's voice came out in a creak. He cleared his throat and began again. "W-Will. I... I... I'm your father, Will. I'm Bootstrap Bill Turner, and... I've come to see my son and his family." He looked very nervous and he messed with the hem of his new jacket. Chris thought that Will looked skeptical. For a moment, she thought Will was going to shut the door, but Bootstrap found the courage to speak again. "I-I sent you that medallion when you were a boy, and the curse is over, so obviously you don't have it, Jack and Chris told me all about what happened, and well – I freed myself from a cannon and have been living on an island ever since, but Chris, I found her on the island, and she took me to Jack and well – I'm here." He said this all very fast, not pausing for breath.

After a few moments of silence, Will finally spoke. "All my life I've been looking for you, it seems. And now, it ends up that you find me, and not the other way around." A tear fell from Will's eye and glinted in the evening light. He shifted the toddler and gave his father a one-armed hug.

Bootstrap returned the hug and pulled away, clapping his son on the back. He looked at the toddler. "Who's this now?"

"He's William, just like you and me. You have granddaughter too, and well – come in, come in! Elizabeth—!" The two entered the house and the door shut behind them. The two pirates in the bushes waited for a moment before emerging and heading down the slope and back the way they came.

Once they had cleared the very extremities of Port Royale, Jack commented, "Liz and Will had another one. God, they're getting on well."

"Aye. I hope that house has more rooms than it looks." Chris said absentmindedly. "And now they have an old coot to add to the mess." She grinned and looked at Jack. He chuckled and took Chris' hand, lacing their fingers together, and they continued to the cove where the _Black Pearl _bobbed.

oOo

I got lost inside my head again I guess  
I made quite a mess of the whole thing  
I've lost count of all the ways I've let you down  
Should've been around more, So what do you say...

Let's call it a day and get back home?  
Let me make it up to you  
I'd rather be holding you  
For all that I put you through  
You know I was stupid  
Can I make this up to you?  
You know I don't mean to  
I know I'm a loser but I'm not losing you

I think back to all the dumb things that I've said  
How most of it just left me feeling down  
And I should thank you cuz I know I never did  
Thank you most of all for keeping me around

So what do you say...

Let's call it a day and get back home?  
Let me make it up to you  
I'd rather be holding you  
For all that I put you through  
You know I was stupid  
Can I make this up to you?  
You know I don't mean to  
I know I'm a loser but I'm not losing you

If I could get this right maybe just this time  
If I could hit rewind and do it all again  
And from the very first night I would hold you so tight  
And if we had a big fight I know I'd let you win  
Just give me one more last chance  
Just give me one more last chance

Let me make it up to you  
I'd rather be holding you  
For all that I put you through  
You know I was stupid  
Can I make this up to you?  
You know I don't mean to  
I know I'm a loser

Let me make it up to you  
I'd rather be holding you  
For all that I put you through  
You know I was stupid  
Can I make this up to you?  
You know I don't mean to  
I know I'm a loser but I'm not losing you


	14. Ziph's Revenge

**Chapter Fourteen  
Ziph's Revenge**

Months later, the crew of the _Black Pearl_ found themselves at the Faithful Bride in Tortuga. It was early September, and soon the _Black Pearl_ and its crew would be heading back to Madagascar for winter. Chris and Jack were watching an arm wrestling contest between Pintel and Athos. Since Ragetti and Sarah were married, the former would often disappear when they docked at Tortuga and so this left Pintel lonely during their time ashore. When the time came to leave, Chris and Pintel would basically have to get a stick and pry Sarah and Ragetti apart, and then, with the other crew members help, would drag Ragetti onto the ship and keep watch over him until they were far enough away so that all hope of swimming to shore was gone. It wasn't that Ragetti didn't want to be aboard the _Black Pearl_ but it was that he also wanted to be with Sarah. Chris found it a rather touching romance, and beneath the surface, she enjoyed it. Of course, she'd never say that to Pintel if she valued her teeth.

During the most recent match, Athos slammed Pintel's hand down on the table, and Jack ruffled the young pirate's hair. "Well done, Athos m'boy!" Anamaria surged forth from her seat and gave the young man a kiss upon the cheek. Athos grinned toothily and Pintel slunk to a corner of the pub, a tankard in hand.

"I'll get some more rum." Chris grabbed Jack's larger tankard and the three smaller ones and stood to go to the bar.

"Thanks, love!" Jack called after her, grinning as toothily as Athos. The latter broke out a pack of playing cards and began dealing them out between himself, Anamaria, and their captain. As Chris waited for the tankards to be filled, a familiar thin, blond woman skulked out of the shadows and promptly walked to Jack.

"'ello, lover." She said, swinging her legs across his lap but turning her upper body to face him. Jack leaned back from the woman and let out a soft groan. He looked desperately at his other two crewmembers and then at Giselle.

"Giselle." He stated stiffly, averting his eyes from her burgeoning chest. "Do us a favor: get off me lap."

"Is that such a good greetin' for me, Jack?" She grabbed him by his chin hair and pulled him into a kiss. Jack's eyes widened and he put his hands upon her shoulders, trying to shove her off of him. She only pulled into the kiss deeper.

Chris took the full tankards from the bartender with a thirsty grin, and turned to head back to the table. It was then that Chris saw Giselle and Jack sucking on each other's faces and she paused, and several emotions rampantly flooded through her. First she felt shock, after that jealously, and finally, anger, anger other than she had ever felt before. Throwing the tankards behind her (there were several shouts of dismay, but she didn't give a good damn about that), Chris stomped to the table, and pulling Giselle off of her captain, threw her into the table. The table scraped across the table and the cards atop it slid into disarray.

"Oh, hello there, Christy." Giselle said, making a poor attempt to tuck her overflowing cleavage back into her dress.

Chris jutted her lower jaw forth and bared her teeth in anger. "You stay away from him you bedraggled fog bound bilge rat!" And with that sentiment, Chris pulled her arm back and slugged the harlot across the face as hard as she could. Giselle's head bobbed and she sank back onto the table, unconscious. Chris whirled around, her angry gaze now on Jack. Why was he allowing her to kiss him? She immediately felt suspicion mingling with the anger. Had he… Could he and Giselle have been carrying on something right under her nose? Instead of saying anything to Jack, she shook her head and shoved through the pub, heading for the door.

"Oh bollocks. Chris! Get yer arse – Chris!" Jack fell backwards in his chair and the impact against the floor caused the furniture to break into pieces. With a grunt, he rolled from the broken chair underneath him and staggered to his feet, following Chris as she exited the tavern. "Chris!"

He did not catch up to Chris until she had boarded the _Black Pearl_ and headed down into the forecastle to her cabin. He found her whipping a sea bag from her chest and stuffing it with various items. Jack breathed in shakily and said, "Chris, she forced herself up me! Stop being such a thick-skulled little wench—"

"How do I know that, Sparrow?" Chris snapped, "I was getting rum, mayhap ye two always do that when I get rum?" Her head was all abuzz. She felt hurt, she felt betrayed, and she felt stupid to even think that the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow could ever handle being monogamous. She grabbed a stack of papers from her desk and stuffed them into her bag.

"Oh aye, Giselle and I get sweet on each other every time ye blink an eye! Hell's bells, Chris!" Jack growled angrily. "Yer acting like a damn naïve girl!"

"And ye wouldn't be acting like this if I was kissing the bartender, Jack? Ye'd have taken his damn head off, and mine too!" Chris replied, letting her bag fall to her bed as she turned to him, arms out at her sides and fingers hooked almost like claws. Loki watched this all very meekly from Chris' headboard.

"First of all, I know ye would have enough sense not to go for someone that looks like Tom, there! And second, you wouldn't even be doing it because ye're with me!" As soon as Jack said this, he knew he had said the wrong thing.

"Oh, I'm with you! I'm with you!" Chris snapped, pulling her bag up once more and stuffing some clothing from her trunk into it. "Yes, because I am with the almighty and all-desirable Captain Jack Sparrow, why would I even think to want to do something with another man? I mean, after all, Captain Jack Sparrow is known far and wide for his monogamy!" Chris pulled the drawstring on her bag tight and rounded on Jack.

He held up his hands. "Chris, just calm down and let's think about this –" He said, trying to salvage any sense left in this argument.

"Did ye go to her because I won't spend the night with you? Did you?" Chris demanded. "I told you right from the beginning that I had no intention to if we would court! You're a disaster! I told you countless times, and now you do this –"

"Chris, I did not spend any –"

"Maybe that's my problem, Sparrow, maybe I spend too much time with you!" Chris slung her bag onto her shoulder and whistled for Loki. He quickly, albeit cautiously, streaked across the bed, up her shirt, and onto her shoulder. Chris affixed Jack with a look of such pure rage and hurt that he took a step back. "I wish ye fair winds and pleasant sails to you, captain. Oh, and I suggest Anamaria to replace me as quartermaster." With that, Chris shoved past Jack and headed up the stairs leading to the deck.

As she left, she passed Cotton. His parrot squawked, "Fair sails?"

Chris shook her head. "Thanks for being such a good mate, Cotton." And with that, she headed down the gangway of the _Black Pearl_, intent that she would never again climb aboard. When she headed into Tortuga, she went to a different and less familiar pub to calm herself in the wake of everything that had happened in the past hour. She wanted a place devoid of memories and crewmembers of the _Black Pearl_, and the Skulking Loon was just the place to do it at. She needed a drink awfully bad, so she and Loki plopped down in front of the bar and ordered a bottle of whiskey. She hadn't drank it since the incident with Marak and his sister, but she needed something stronger than rum. When it arrived, a manly voice that sounded somewhat familiar said from her right, "I'll pay for that, bartender. And two glasses, please."

Chris lazily looked to see who had spoke, and when her eyes fell upon the man she immediately jumped from her seat, reaching for her pistol. The voice belonged to Ziph, the same Ziph who had attempted to kill Chris and his father, her uncle. Her hand went to the butt of her pistol and the man raised his hands.

"Christiana, calm down!" Ziph chuckled, his mouth forming a small smile. "If I wanted to do what I tried to a few months ago, I would've done it while you weren't looking! Have a drink, on me." He poured the whiskey into the glasses the bartender provided and gave the fuller one to Chris. "You look like you've had a rough night.

Chris was full of suspicion, but damn it, she wanted a drink. She kept her hand on her pistol and she took the glass and threw it back, her tongue puckering at the taste. She coughed and leered at Ziph.

"Christiana, come!" Ziph chuckled, "We are cousins, aren't we?" He refilled her glass.

"I usually don't claim cousins that attempt to kill me or my family members." Chris replied. "And if I hadn't just had the night I'd have, you'd be bloody." Loki screeched his assent from her shoulder.

Ziph shrugged, taking a sip from his own glass. "Fair enough. Honestly, I'm over that whole 'My father wasn't there' thing. I have my own ship now, and I don't really care about it anymore. Christiana, please calm down, you're making your monkey agitated."

Indeed, Loki had escalated from his single shriek to many consecutive shrieks in slowly increasing volume. Chris hesitantly took her hand off of her pistol and scratched the ape's head. He let out a warble and stared at Ziph. "What brings you to such a place, and alone at that?" Ziph asked.

"I'm sort of… A free pirate, one might say." Chris drained her glass once more, her eyes pinching shut at the amount of whiskey she had consumed in the last five minutes. Ziph took her glass and began to refill it once more.

"You aren't with the _Pearl_ anymore?" Ziph asked, and then chuckled, "But isn't your sweetheart on board?" Chris responded by giving him an icy stare. Ziph pushed the filled glass back to her. "Drink up, cousin."

With each glass of whiskey, Chris' vision became fuzzier, and after the fifth glass, she didn't remember anything from there on out. The next morning, she woke up, feeling the gentle sway of a ship traveling on water. Her eyes still closed, she wondered if she had made it back to the _Pearl_ in her drunken stupor… And now she regretted the words she spoke to Jack. He would tell her the truth, and even if monogamy wasn't his strong point he wouldn't have committed such a thing against his quartermaster. What if he refused to forgive her for the words she spoke? Chris felt dread seep into her stomach. If he didn't forgive her, she wouldn't be able to stand it. She wanted him to forgive her, and for things revert to the way they had been before. She groaned and decided she better wake up and make amends.

Chris opened her eyes and was met with the unfamiliar sight of women, all in skirts at the very least, and dresses with jewelry at the very most, in various degrees of sleeping positions. They all lay along the edges of the hold of an unfamiliar ship, and Chris realized she was not where she thought she had been. "What the—!" She said loudly. She vaulted into a standing position and promptly cracked her head on the low-hanging timbers above. She fell back down, her head reeling not only from the physical pain, but the hangover she was experiencing. She grabbed her head and a familiar chirrup told her that Loki was still with her. She looked up to see Loki hanging from one of the timbers, his head cocked to the side. "Hey mate." She said, wincing. The monkey made a small squeak before jumping to other timbers.

Chris' method of awakening in turn awoke others. Some of the women glared at her and others just rolled back into their sleeping places. A man who was watching over the sleeping ladies and positioned by the staircase pointed at Chris. He had dark skin, a scraggly black beard, and almond eyes. "You! You're new! Report to Captain Ziph on the bridge immediately!"

_Captain Ziph?_ Chris asked herself, and then cursed. She trusted him, allowed him to get her drunk, and he had put her on his ship! That son of a—! Her thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of a bell, calling the watch. Chris could fight her way off this ship if he wouldn't let her off – And if she could, she was going to cut out Ziph's sugared tongue. Chris reached for her sword and pistol and found her belt missing. She cursed and looked for her sea bag, which was also nowhere to be found. _Well isn't this lovely?_ She cursed again and decided to do what the man had said.

She climbed the stairwell for several decks before emerging out into the open air. She expected them to be docked at Tortuga, but when she looked over the sides of the ship, she gasped. Shore was nowhere to be seen. Chris whirled around in a circle, looking for any scrap of land in the endless amount of water and found none. Chris looked up to the bridge and saw Ziph addressing the helmsman. He was dressed like a rich gentleman with fine black breeches, tall polished boots, a dark velvet jacket, and a silk shirt.

Rage and anger that she had never felt boiled into Chris' blood. "You!" Chris took wide, quick steps and in a matter of seconds she had climbed the stairs to the bridge.

"Ah Chrissy!" He said, jovially, "Sleep well—?" Chris decked him across the cheek as soon as her arm was within reach. Ziph fell to the deck and immediately, two men grabbed Chris by the arms and pulled her back, but her tongue wasn't restrained.

"You thundering sea-drinking ballast pig! You took me away from Tortuga! You pox infested gun deafened biscuit weevil!" Chris spat, "How dare you even—"

Ziph had pulled himself to his feet by the second insult and he touched the stream of blood coming from his mouth. He wiped it on his breeches before pulling his hand forward and backhanding Chris. She fell silent as Ziph began to talk. "How dare I? I don't dare, Chris, I do! And besides, I didn't take you away, you consented to coming aboard!" He reached into the inside of his velvet jacket and pulled out a scrap of paper. He read it aloud. "I, the undersigned, consent to becoming a crew member of the privateer ship _Revenge_ for a minimum of five years. Signed – Well, you Chrissy!" He showed the paper to Chris, and indeed, her signature adorned the bottom of the paper. This made fresh anger surge into her, and the two men restraining her called for more help as she lunged at Ziph.

"You crazy bastard! Take me back! Take me back!" Something hit her hard on the head and she saw spots. Her body slackened a little as she heard Ziph speak again.

"Clean her up and then bring her back to me for the assignment of her uniform. She's filthy, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was infested with lice after being on the _Black Pearl_." Chris threw look of pure venom at Ziph as she was dragged away.

She was pulled to the deck below before finally arriving at the deck where the head was. Every scrap of clothing she wore was torn from her body and a bucket of cold water was thrown on her. "Oi!" She yelped, and then one of the burlier men grabbed for her neck and, holding her head underneath his arm, he scrubbed her entire body with a brush and a bar of soap. The brush made her skin red and irritated and the man was none too gentle. Against her protests and kicks, the man then scrubbed her hair, pulling out a liberal quantity with the brush. After several more buckets of water were thrown on her, they threw a sack over her and hauled her back up to the captain's cabin. She was dumped unceremoniously before Ziph, who was sitting at a table with a plate of meat swimming in gravy set before him and a napkin tucked into his collar.

"That's much better!" He said approvingly as Chris struggled to her feet, fighting to have the sack cover what little remained of her modesty after this occurrence. "As to your uniform." Ziph took a bite of meat and talked without swallowing. "What's the status of your maidenhood?"

"Piss off!" Chris responded, a blush rising to her cheeks.

"Have her wear the pink, then." Ziph said to his men. "I wager you'll have quite a bit of fun tonight, Chris." He grinned.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Chris spat.

"Well, the uniforms are designed to protect any virginity aboard. Since you won't answer, I'll assume you have no innocence to protect, thus the pink dress." A pink dress that lacked sleeves was thrown at her feet. "Have fun with the crew, Chris." He laughed.

Chris wanted to throttle the life out of Ziph, but she was half naked and lacked anything that would do much damaged besides her fists and feet. "I am still retaining my maidenhood, Ziph." She stated, raising her chin and looking at the seated man with all of the haughtiness she could muster.

"You're not a very good liar, Chrissy." Ziph said, smiling. "We do know that you were one of two women aboard the _Black Pearl_, and we know that Jack Sparrow certainly likes his women."

"You'll address him as **Captain **Jack Sparrow in the future if you know what's good for you." Chris growled. "I'm not lying."

Ziph tapped his chin. "Fine, give her a white dress and get her out of my sight." Once more, Chris was hauled below decks and thrown into the same hold where she had been so crudely bathed. She was thrown to the deck and on top of her was tossed a white dress.

"This is your uniform, to be worn at all times." One of the men growled. "After you're dressed, report on deck for your duties, less you want the beatin' of your life." Those who had carried her up and down the decks filtered out, and Chris was left lying upon the still wet wood. Now that she was left alone, she felt hollow emptiness radiate outward from the pit of her stomach, and nothing but woe and misery for herself. And what Chris realized most was that she desperately missed Jack. She breathed in deeply. The last words she had spoken to him had been unkind. What if they never crossed paths again? Chris pressed her face against the wet wood and squeezed her eyes shut.

Jack hadn't expected Chris to return the next day, and perhaps even the day after that, but when she didn't show up when they were about to sail, Jack was in shocked awe. Could she have been serious? Of course not, she was too loyal to the crew of the _Black Pearl_, to him. She wouldn't just abandon them because of her misconceptions of what Jack had done. As they were about to sail, Jack stood on the bridge, turned towards the port. Chris couldn't be gone for good.

"Ready to sail, captain." Gibbs informed Jack warily, coming up behind him. Gibbs also wore a look of worry on his face, but he said nothing else.

"Aye." The captain replied hazily and he turned to the wheel. Before he called the order to cast off, he looked at the shore again, hoping to see the figure of Chris, racing down the dock with her wretched ape loping after her. He wasn't greeted with such a sight. "Cast off." He said dejectedly, staring hopelessly into the horizon. So Chris was gone… He sighed. He wished… He wished he had done something to keep her, to assure her that she was all the woman he had wanted… But the past couldn't be changed, could it?

Within the first two days of Chris' indentured servitude aboard the _Revenge_, Chris had been knocked about the head several times, kicked, slammed to the deck, and slapped for her "cheek." Finally, instead of a man watching over her, one of Ziph's female servants was assigned to her. This woman was a young, plump, red-blond haired girl with blue eyes and an ever present smile. Her name was Victoria, and Chris immediately became comforted by her easy manner, tendency to crack jokes, and loud laugh. As they both scrubbed the head on Chris' fifth day aboard the revenge, Victoria recanted her life to Chris as a way to pass the time.

Victoria had been born in Ireland, and raised there. Though her parents were Irish and had traditional Gaelic names, her father had once heard the name 'Victoria' in a tale about the Roman goddess of victory, and after some pressing and pushing, her mother agreed to name their firstborn daughter after the goddess. Victoria had a pretty normal life in Ireland, and when she became sixteen, traveled to London to become an apprentice to a seamstress. When she was seventeen, she was at a pub one night when she met the rogue-ishly handsome Ziph who bought her the first alcoholic drink she had ever consumed, and she ended up on the ship under the same contract Chris had signed.

Chris was amazed at the amount of women Ziph had amassed in the small time since he had disappeared on the island with the treasure cache. The woman that did most of the work on the ship had all been procured in the same way as Chris and Victoria, and any men other than Ziph were hired thugs used to keep the women in line. Because she had been more obedient than some of the other women, Victoria was put in charge of the new girls, trying to get them to cooperate with their captors. She had grown accustomed to being a privateer crew member, and she did admit to Chris she preferred it to making clothes.

Victoria wore a yellow dress, which was the other category of dress color aboard the ship. Victoria told Chris that those who wore white were not to be touched in any way without express permission from Ziph. Those who wore yellow dresses could be touched with the woman's consent, and those with the pink dresses were not protected or watched over in any way. Chris noticed that those who wore the pink looked ragged and often would not look anyone in the eye. Chris immediately knew that Ziph was a monster and he had to be stopped.

One day, as the sun rose, Chris and Victoria were on watch in the crow's nest. "These bleedin' dresses are ridiculous!" Chris said as she adjusted the bodice of her dress. It seemed to be intent on exposing her bosom no matter what she did.

"…I sewed those dresses." Victoria said, her lips turning down slightly.

Chris smiled softly. "Well, if maybe your dress didn't seem intent on exposing my chest, it might be palatable."

Victoria shrugged. "I just sewed them to Captain Ziph's orders."

"Figures." Chris scoffed. She leaned against the mast, using it to scratch her back when she suddenly spotted a ship's sails on the horizon. Her stomach did a somersault and the irrational thought of "_Jack's found me_!" flitted through her head. Chris looked at Victoria and then said, "Victoria, it's a ship. A ship!" She bounced up and down on her heels a few times, "A ship, a ship, a ship, a ship!" She cackled madly and grabbed the line that would zip her to the deck.

"Chris –!" Victoria cried, but Chris was already sliding down to the deck, her skirt flaring out about her legs. She probably gave those below a show, but she didn't care. She hit the deck, laughed, and crossed to the bulkhead, climbing atop it to try and get a closer look. Victoria hit the deck behind her and pulled her friend from the railing. "Are you trying to get yourself beaten?" She hissed, "The men'll think you're going to jump! And stop laughing! I don't see what the fuss is about."

Chris looked at Victoria with wild eyes. "Vic, if it's a PIRATE ship, it might be MY pirate ship, or someone Jack and I have become acquainted with! They'll blow this sorry excuse for a ship to smithereens, and I could make them an offer to take me back to Tortuga, and maybe you back to London, or some other port!" She let out a stream of wild laughter and Victoria clapped her hand over Chris' mouth. Some of the men up on the bridge were casting the two women suspicious looks.

"Shut it! We're going to get in trouble – And 'sides, if it's a pirate ship, Ziph's going to make us fight it, and we'll most likely win – All of our cannons are long-nines!" Victoria whispered.

"Not if it's the _Black Pearl_!" Chris spurted as soon as Victoria's hand was removed. In her mind she could see Jack at the helm, commanding Ragetti, Pintel, Athos and the rest to fire upon the ship, the _Revenge_ falling apart like wet bread, and Chris could see her freedom. As the ship drew nearer, though, her hopes were dashed for the ship did not sport black sails, but it did proudly fly the union jack. It appeared to be a Royal Navy ship.

Disappointed, Chris called Loki to her from the rigging above and he perched on her shoulder as Ziph emerged from his cabin. He glanced at the ship and ordered all the deck crew to line up on the deck as though for inspection. Victoria, Loki, and Chris formed the right end of the front line, and Chris' gaze hungrily roamed over the ship. While, yes, it did appear to be a Royal Navy warship named the _Resolute_ and she did happen to be a pirate, that didn't change the fact that what Ziph was doing was wrong. Even if it landed Chris in the brig, she could say her brother's name and somehow stop Ziph.

A new hope and fantasy awoke in Chris' mind of Norrington arresting Ziph and all of his men, freeing every one of the women, and then embracing Chris with open arms. Chris suddenly mentally slapped herself. Just how daft was she? She was giving herself false hope. She needed to stop. Her chest heaved with a sigh and she waited to see what would happen next.

Flags of truce were raised, and it appeared the Navy ship meant to board the _Revenge_. Grappling hooks were thrown across and the _Revenge_ was secured to the _Resolute_. Rich, golden-filigreed planks were laid across the gap between the ships, and a white wigged, Navy-blue uniformed man crossed the planks, a similarly dressed man behind him. Chris gasped as she realized that the leading man was Norrington with his lieutenant Gillette following closely behind. She had a chance! Now, how to exploit her brother's presence to her advantage…

Ziph bowed to Norrington as the Commodore came to a rest on the deck of the _Revenge_ and upon rising, he saluted. "I, Captain Ziph Cross welcome Commodore Norrington aboard the privateer ship _Revenge_."

"Thank you." Norrington replied. He looked around, surveying all the women and the few men. Chris prayed that he would see her, but her prayer went unanswered. "And do you indeed have the papers proving that you are a privateer ship, Captain Cross?"

"Yes sir. You," Ziph pointed at Chris, snapping his fingers. "Fetch them from the top drawer of the desk in my cabin. Now."

Chris silently rejoiced. Ziph had made his mistake; Norrington would see his sister now. If only she could say something to him that Ziph wouldn't understand... With that thought, she remembered the French lessons that she and James had been given when they were young. Chris walked forward, but instead of turning to go to Ziph's cabin, she fell to her knees before Norrington. Loki gave a screech and jumped from his mistress, disappearing in the crowd of women.

"_Le frère, m'aider, m'aider s'il vous plaît! M'aider, m'aider, m'aider_ (Brother, help me, help me please!)! James!" She pleaded in French, her hands clasped together in front of her beseechingly. Ziph's eyes widened in horror as he stared down at her, realizing that he had no idea what she was saying to a man who was more than capable of having him and his ship blown out of the water.

"Pay no attention to her sir, she's a crazy French girl, I took her in—" Ziph said hurriedly, taking Chris by the arm, "Every poor thing should get a second chance, don't you agree? If you would, please excuse me while I take her back to her duties – My first mate, Joshua, will get the papers you need." Ziph jerked Chris to her feet, even though she struggled, and began pulling her to the stairwell that led below.

"_Il couche, ne pas écouter Jamie! __S'il vous plaît m'aider, m'aider! Si vous jamais m'avez aimé, m'aider_! (He is lying, don't listen Jamie! Please help me, help me! If you ever loved me, help me!) Please!" Chris screamed as she was drug through the doorway to the stairwell and then down, kicking and writhing. The last she saw of her brother was his concerned and shocked face.

Ziph slammed the door to the above decks closed and picked up Chris by the arms, shaking her. "What did you say to him? What did you say?" He asked angrily, "Tell me, or I'll –!"

"Go ahead and hit me you black hearted, barnacle encrusted, hammock hogging maroon!" Chris crowed triumphantly. She grinned at him and said, "I'll see you **DEAD**!"

His eyes ablaze with fury, Ziph slapped Chris across the face and then shoved her down the stairwell. She hit the first stair hard, her right shoulder popping out of place, and then she rolled down the others, slamming into the wooden railing when she reached the landing. Her shoulder screamed with pain, and Chris whimpered. Alright, maybe she had bit off a bit more than she could chew…

"You little bitch!" Ziph roared, jumping down the stairs and landing next to her. He kicked her in the stomach before nudging her with his foot to the top of the next flight of stairs. With another kick, she went tumbling down them as well. "Why do you make me hurt you? Why? All you had to do was shut your filthy little trap!" Ziph was next to her in an instant. He bent down, picked her up by her hair, and slapped her across the face once more. "Do you like being hurt? Do you?"

Chris's body was nothing but a pulsating mass of pain. Every inch of her skin stung, her shoulder was in agony, and she wouldn't be surprised if she had broken something. Ziph grabbed her by the back of the neck and half-dragged and shoved her down the next few flights of stairs. When the two finally reached the last hold, Ziph pulled Chris to the door of the metal cage that was the _Revenge_'s brig. He threw her inside before slamming the door shut. Chris heard the lock click and then Ziph shoved his face between the bars.

"You'll never see the light of day again!" He hissed. He grabbed the key that hung from a nail on the opposite wall and pocketed it before returning to the brig. "If I can't clean up this mess you made, you'll meet your end much faster than what I have in store for you!" With his face twisted in hate, he spat upon his cousin and raced up the stairs.

Chris waited, for part of her hoped that soon Norrington would burst into the brig and rescue her. But time passed and no one came. Chris' hoped faded and gave way to despair and let the pain her body was feeling take hold of her. She bent double and sobs echoed from her mouth. What had she done to her brother to offend him so greatly that he wouldn't help his own sister? What had she ever done to deserve all of this? Sure, she had never been the most pious or obedient person, but surely there were those worse than her that deserved what she was going through more so. As she gave herself over to despair, her shoulder throbbed dully, and Chris, for the first time in her life, wished that she were dead.

At the same moment, the _Black Pearl_ was again leaving Tortuga. Jack decided to winter early; he didn't have the mood for pillaging and plundering for a month or two more. The ship returned to Tortuga so Ragetti could get his bonnie lass, and the _Black Pearl_ then made for Madagascar. Jack had felt all out of sorts since Chris had left, for reasons he knew not. He had never felt like it before when any other crew member left, or died; he didn't even feel like this when his entire crew marooned him on that God-forsaken spit of land. He kept finding himself wandering down to Chris' deserted cabin and going inside. She had left some of her disguises in the chest at the foot of her bed, but that was it. Jack did find her damask bandana, though, accidentally left behind on the floor.

When he found the bandana, he picked it up and wound it around his hand. To Jack, the damask bandana had been a part of Chris. She was almost never without it, and since she had forgotten it, Jack held onto it as a part of her. He tied the bandana in place around his hand and had returned to his duties. The scrap of cloth would never make up for its owner, though. Jack had no idea what was happening to him. He had never before been like this with any other person, living or dead. The only thing he knew was that if he ever laid eyes upon Chris again, he needed to do all in his power to ensure that she would never leave again.

At the present, the watch changed, and Jack turned the wheel over to Cotton. A fresh bout of Chris-related melancholy was taking hold of him, and he knew that he would not be fit to command until it passed. Instead, Jack headed for his cabin. When he entered his cabin, his eyes fell upon the succubus horn that Baloo had given him where it lay upon one of his shelves. Tacked onto the wall was the old drawing that Ali had given him, detailing Jack, Chris, and Loki aboard a sketching of the _Pearl_. Jack sighed and pulled the damask bandana from his hand, inspecting the black and white pattern. He missed Chris so much. A pang ran through his heart and he groaned. Only one thing could solve Chris' absence. Jack grabbed a corked bottle of rum from his navigational table and crawled inside of it for the rest of the day.

Later from the shadows, a voice called out. "Chris... Chris!"

Chris lazily looked into the darkness of the brig for the speaker of her name. With the setting of the sun, the brig had turned to pitch black, and no one had bothered to bring in any light. Chris was still bent double in her pain from earlier. As she moved her head, her still out of place shoulder sent a shot of screaming pain through her. Chris let out a cry and decided to do something about it. She straightened out on the floor and with her weight she pressed her shoulder against the floor boards until it popped back into place, sending yet another wave of pain through her side. "Oh... God!" She shuddered, before letting out a groan of pain. Coughing suddenly racked her body, and what she had eaten that morning made a second appearance. She wagered that it wasn't a good sign as to her physical state.

"Shhhh! Chris, I know it must be hard, but be quiet! Someone might come looking, and Chris, you really can't have anymore trouble right now!" The friendly face of Victoria suddenly appeared in a shallow pool of candlelight. Her freckled features were etched in anxiety as she passed half a loaf of bread and an orange through the bars of the cage. Chris' stomach was sour, but the taste of vomit was overwhelming in her mouth, so she began tearing off chunks of bread and stuffing them into her mouth to relieve the taste.

"What happened?" She managed to ask between swallowing bites of food.

"The man you were saying stuff to – With the big hat – He... Well, he called your monkey to him while Ziph was taking care of you, and Loki obeyed! The man had one of his men take him aboard the _Resolute_ by the time Ziph reappeared. He lied about you being an insane French mademoiselle that swabbed the decks for him. Ziph got his papers and once he flashed them at the man, he just sailed away."

Chris squeezed the orange so hard that it exploded, and again she cried out in pain as the citrus managed its way into her eyes. Blindly, she sucked on the flesh of the orange. Her brother was really cold-hearted enough to leave her after everything she said; but then, why did he take Loki? She was puzzled, but at least her loyal monkey wouldn't die aboard the _Revenge_. "Thank you, Victoria." Chris handed the remains of the orange back to the girl, for if anyone came down and found orange peel inside the brig, they would know someone had brought her food. "Any word on when I'll get out of this?"

"Nay. Ziph, though, did warn us: Any more behavior like yours, any desperation to Navy officers, and we were to be shot as soon as the ship parts from us. Also—" Her voice wavered, "Anyone found sneaking you any food or water will have forty lashes with two-stripes."

Chris knew the punishment to be harsh; she hadn't been a quartermaster for many years without any knowledge of the penalties she doled out. "Victoria... Thank you." She touched Victoria's arm through the bars, and then slunk back in the brig. "Go now, you've risked too much. Don't come again. Th-thank you. You're a good friend. I'm only sorry I couldn't get you out of this." The girl had done enough, and Chris didn't want her beaten because of her.

"Chris—" Victoria protested, but Chris said no more. Chris didn't know whether the candle guttered out or if Victoria left on her own accord; either way, she was gone by dawn.

Chris was left alone for three days. Over those three days, her body repaired some of the damage done. No one ever came after Victoria, and Chris became so desperate for water that she almost started sucking at the condensation that beaded down the inside of the brig. The condensation was from the sea, however, and since that would just complicate things, Chris had to do her best to stay still and try to focus on something other than the thirst that grew with each passing minute.

The door of Jack's cabin banged open and Gibbs announced to his captain, asleep in his bed, "Captain! Captain, a Navy ship is on our port side!"

Jack snorted and vaulted upright. An empty rum bottle was clutched in his hands along with the damask bandana. He looked at the silhouette standing in his doorway. "Whazzat, Gibbs?" He asked, rubbing his eye.

Gibbs spoke with barely contained hysteria, "A Navy ship, named the _RESOLUTE,_ IS **ON** **OUR** **PORT** **SIDE**!"

That seemed to do it. Jack jumped from the bed, but his foot became entwined in his bedding, and he fell forward onto his face. "Um, man the cannon! Everyone, everyone prepare for... boarding!" God, he didn't know what to do. And they still hadn't re-elected a quartermaster; who would do the boarding?

"Captain, they've run up a flag of truce." Gibbs informed his captain. It was apparent that even with that fact, Gibbs was terrified.

Jack looked up from the floor. "Whazzat? Truce? What the bloody Hell—"Jack stood and pulled the sheets from his leg, took a swig from his rum bottle, and walked to Gibbs. "Le'see what the boys in blue want from us, eh?" Gibbs stared in disbelief at his captain's easy manner with this situation once Jack's back was turned, and the two walked out onto the main deck. It was late, late night, and the stars in the sky were shining like diamonds littered onto a navy blue cloth.

Grappling hooks and a board had already been thrown across the gap between the two ships, and Norrington was waiting for Jack on the other end. Jack sleepily rubbed his eyes and gave a half-hearted mock salute to Norrington. "Morning, Commodore. What has given me the honor of meeting with you at this fine hour?" He took a swig of his rum bottle, and leaned against the bulkhead of the _Black Pearl_.

Norrington looked at Jack, as if he was considering what he was about to say. He took a deep breath and put his hands in front of him, one hand clutching the other at the wrist. "Captain Sparrow, three days ago, I approached the privateer ship, _Revenge_. It was captained by a man named Ziph Cross. This man takes – well, takes isn't the word… He tricks women into signing agreements whilst they have been drinking heavily. Anyway, he has women as the greater part of his crew, with only a few men to keep them in line. Whilst I was waiting for his papers, a girl fell forward on her knees, pleading to me in French." Jack had begun inspecting his nails while Norrington talked, and now he started to bite off a hang-nail. Norrington continued. "I understood enough to translate this: 'Brother, help me please'." Jack looked up. "The captain came forward, telling me it was a crazy French mademoiselle, and she protested in French that he was lying, and again begged me to help her. The captain dragged her below decks, and I did not see her again. I left the ship, but not before I collected something that the girl had with her." Gillette stepped forward, holding a basket with a top. He crossed on the planks and set the basket down before pulling the lid off.

Screeching and shrieking, Loki jumped out of the basket and, after a look around, leaped across the plank and onto the deck before shortly jumping onto the foremast and climbing up it and into the top. Jack had dropped his rum bottle into the sea at this development and stared up at the monkey. _I hate that bloody ape_, he thought to himself, and now, at full attention, looked at Norrington as Gillette returned to the _Resolute_.

"The _Revenge_, according to the captain and first mate, was heading for France, perhaps for winter, perhaps for a new area. The ship was marked as so, three days ago, on this map." Norrington now crossed the plank and handed Jack a furled map. "And they were most likely heading North by Northwest." Norrington's mouth opened to say something else, but then he spotted the damask bandana wrapped around Jack's hand. "Where did you get that?" He asked.

"It's Chris'. She left it." Jack replied. The two men stared at each other as though a silent understanding was passing between them.

Norrington nodded. "Goodnight, Captain Sparrow." Norrington returned to the deck of his ship, the plank was withdrawn and the grappling hooks removed, and the _Resolute_ began to glide away.

The captain of the _Pearl_ unfurled the map and gave it a cursory glance before looking back up. "_Oi_!" Jack called after the warship, "What if we can't find 'im?"

"You'll be able to find the _Resolute_, and we will help you find him," Norrington replied. "I find my hands tied since it is one of His Majesty's Privateers. I wish you the best of luck, Captain Sparrow."

Jack looked at the map again before furling it once more. He turned around and headed for the bridge, issuing the following order as he did: "Mr. Gibbs, order all hands to their posts! I don't care if their sleeping, let's make this ship fly!"

"Chrissy... Chrissy-Chrissy-Chrissy..." The first light Chris had seen other than what had managed its way through the cracks of the deck above flooded the brig. Chris shielded her eyes from the light as she heard her cell door's lock click open. Two men roughly seized her under the arms, causing pain to sear through her shoulder. She yelled out and thrashed a bit, but it did no good, and she was weak and thirsty. Her lips were cracked and her complexion pallid. The men roughly dragged her from the brig and up the stairwell. Chris didn't have the energy to fight back at all, and she only dully recognized that Ziph was the one carrying the lantern.

When they made it to the main deck, Chris was able to look up at the stars burning brightly in the heavens. She didn't really acknowledge that the men tied her hands behind her back, and made her kneel on deck. The stars were shining so brightly… They were so beautiful. Could Jack see them? Only when Ziph began speaking did Chris really take noticed of what was happening around her presently.

"None of you have seen the retribution that comes to those who misbehave." Ziph said, pacing across the deck. Chris saw that every one of the women was lined up before where she kneeled. Victoria was looking at Chris with a mix of sorrow and restraint showing clearly on her features. Chris tried to smile, but her lips cracked and she winced.

"So far—" Ziph continued, "Each one of you have obeyed my orders. I run a tight ship, and each and every one of you is worth your weight in gold. But her—" He pointed at Chris, and one of the men took her by her hair and pulled her head back, exposing the pale flesh of her throat. It was marred by the faint scar that had been put there by the barmaid in Tortuga, which seemed so long ago now... "She could have said lies about all of you, about me, about the ship for God's sake, to that commodore! She could have called us pirates, which could have gotten us all a nice lasso around our throats. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I would certainly not have fancied that. For that," Ziph took a dramatic pause before continuing, a smile barely contained on his lips, "she will die."

Chris rolled her eyes. She was certainly getting tired of people trying to kill her – and then failing. Ziph would probably succeed, and she had to commend him for that. Ziph walked to her and observed the pale flesh of her throat. Unsheathing a knife from his waist, he pulled a small section of her hair forward and tested the sharpness of the blade by cutting off a fairly long piece of it. He wrapped the strands of hair around his fingers and paced before her. Chris did not look away from her killer. She looked dead into his eye. How bad would death be anyway, if she couldn't be on the _Pearl_ with Jack? Leaving Jack had been the best mistake of her life. Even if the man was a mess sometimes, he was her mess and she wouldn't have had him any other way. She almost smiled weakly. Well, Chris never had him, but that wasn't the point…

She was brought back to the present as Ziph placed the cool blade against her throat and looked down at her with slanted eyes. Chris didn't plead, she didn't beg, she didn't even look remotely frightened; she just looked at the irises of his muddy eyes. She almost said, "Do it," but she would have been interrupted.

**BOOM**!

_CRUNCH_!

Ziph pulled the blade away from Chris' throat as the wood on the port side exploded into splinters. A cannon ball stopped an eighth of the way into the deck, leaving a trail of shaved wood in its wake. "To your quarters!" Ziph commanded, and his men complied as he sheathed the knife at his waist.

Victoria raised her arms to stop the women from moving. "Sisters! I don't know about you, but I say we seize our own destiny, and make our own luck!" She pointed to Ziph. "He's beaten us and harassed us! Let's string him from the foremast before we deal with our attacker!" There were cheers from the women and just like that, a sea of women surged forward towards Ziph and his men, overcoming Chris. She was afraid she'd be trampled by the zealous women, but Victoria found her, lifted her up, and freed her from her bounds. She also held a wineskin to her lips. Where she had obtained it, Chris did not know. "Drink a few gulps, but that's it. Otherwise you'll get sick." Victoria commanded, "Then come and find us and you can be the one to string up the captain." Victoria left Chris with a smile.

Doing as Victoria directed, Chris only took a few sips, fighting the urge to drink it all in one gulp. She left the wineskin behind and joined the sea of rebellious women. So far they had beaten two of the men unconscious, but hadn't gotten a hold of Ziph. Cannon balls hit the _Revenge_ two or three more times as the women continued to overrun the men, but whoever was attacking them had stopped, and suddenly, grappling hooks and boards were thrown across on the port side—

And Jack was the first to board the _Revenge_, Loki riding on his shoulder, and directly followed by Anamaria, Ragetti, Pintel, Marty, and Athos. Seeing her mates, her friends, and her captain almost sent Chris into tears. The women and her circumstances faded away. "Jack! JACK!" Chris cried and she pushed herself through the sea of women to get to her true captain. She couldn't help herself, for as soon as she got within reach of him, Chris grabbed Jack by the jacket and pulled him into a kiss that would make an old maid faint. Loki, unsurprisingly, screeched and jumped from Jack's shoulder.

When Chris released Jack, he looked at her in shock, and then a sly grin crept onto his face. "And a hello to you too, Chris."

Chris had not released his jacket, and giggled a little. It was only when she heard angry female shouting that she remembered just what exactly was occurring. "I have something to finish! Wait here!" She deliriously pecked Jack on the cheek and stumbled off to find Ziph. Her stomach was growling, she felt like she may pass out at any moment, but she didn't care. She had a lust for vengeance running through her body, and by God, she was going to exact it on the man that had made the last few weeks of her life miserable.

Most of the women had cornered the male members of the crew and were taking out their vengeance for the beatings and worse crimes that they had inflicted upon the women. Chris finally spotted a flash of scarlet hair and focused on Victoria. She saw that the girl had cornered Ziph at the bow, and he had the look of a fox cornered by a hound. Victoria had somehow come up with a length of rope, probably to be used to string him up when the time came. Chris would have to continue through the crowd of women to reach the pair, but she could hear the exchange between them.

"Victoria, darling, we've always been friends, haven't we?" Ziph said, his eyes working hard to find any way past Victoria. He was pressed up against the railing of the bow and tried to edge along it as he spoke.

"No, we haven't." Victoria replied and she lunged for one of Ziph's hands in an effort to secure it with the rope, and Ziph's other hand grabbed his knife. Victoria saw her mistake and abandoned the rope. Her hand shot up to grab his arm and pull it down so that she could beat the knife from his hand. He pulled back his other hand and slugged her across the face. The woman reeled backward, and Ziph charged at her. Victoria grabbed his wrist, twisting it so that the blade stuck up vertically between them, and the two collided. They both paused, their eyes growing wide, and underneath them a small puddle of blood began accumulating. Finally, Ziph pulled away from Victoria, his knife stuck in her gut and a look of triumph on his face. "Goddess of victory indeed!" The man sneered. He gave the knife a wrench and then pulled it out. Victoria fell to the deck, and Ziph stepped over her body, quickly making his way down to the main deck and skirting the women unnoticed.

Chris watched all of this in horror. No, no, no, her only friend of the _Revenge_ stabbed? No, no! "Oh Lord… Vic!" She catapulted through the women and up onto the bow. When she reached Victoria's side, she kneeled and took the girl into her arms. "Vic… Oh, Vic…" Chris said, looking at the raw, bloody hole that was in Victoria's belly. The girl looked up Chris, her blue eyes wet.

"It… It doesn't hurt that bad." Victoria grimaced and Chris' lips parted in anguish.

"You'll make it, I'll get you stitched up in no time, you'll – you'll make it." Chris said, her own eyes becoming wet. This girl could not die, this girl was her salvation, it was the reason that Jack and the others had been able to board without a problem; she couldn't die!

Victoria shook her head sadly. A trail of blood was running from the corner of her lips, and her mouth was red with blood. "No. I won't. But don't worry about me… Because where I'm going…" Her last words came out in a whisper, "I'll have wings."

Chris sniffed and blinked a few tears away. "Oh Victoria." Chris kissed Victoria's forehead, and within seconds, Victoria gave up her mortal body. As she felt the life leave this girl, this poor girl from Ireland, Chris could feel the lust for vengeance boil into her blood. She was going to kill Ziph if it was the last thing she did. She left Victoria's body and went to the side of one of the unconscious men that was no longer swarmed by women. She plucked the pistol off of his body and made sure it was primed and loaded. She climbed upon the railing, holding onto a line so that she could survey those on deck.

Chris could see Jack and the crew helping round up the last of the men, the immobile shapes of those who were unconscious, and finally, the head of Ziph, who was looking utterly lost in the confusion upon the aft deck. Chris jumped from the railing and walked to the aft end of the ship, her strides long, brisk, and with purpose. As soon as she climbed the stairs, Ziph saw her and began stuttering in fear.

"Chris, I-I-I-I was just kidding! I wouldn't k-k-k-kill my own c-c-c-c-c-c-cousin! Chris, b-b-believe me!" His brown eyes pleaded with her for mercy.

Chris pointed the pistol at Ziph. "Turn around and start walking aft." She demanded. Ziph obeyed. She waited until he had walked several feet, and then she put a bead on his head. Chris pulled the trigger.

The roar of the women taking their vengeance died down faster than a flame extinguished with water. They all stared at the aft deck, where Chris stood. The pistol was shaking in her hand and Ziph was laying face down, a puddle of scarlet stretching from his head down the length of his body in a short time. Chris threw the pistol down, picked up Ziph's legs, and hauled his body to the bulkhead, leaving a smear of red across the deck. She slowly heaved his body over, and it hit the water below with a splash. Chris stared down into the blackness for a moment before she fell to the deck, collapsing from a mix of exhaustion, adrenaline, and hunger.

Jack made sure that Chris and everyone else aboard the _Revenge_ were taken care of. After a few days of rest and good food, Chris had recovered. Jack had kept her monkey from her during that time, but when they were reunited, Loki was overjoyed to see her, and showed so by assaulting her head.

Victoria was sewn into the blankets she had slept in and given a sea burial. Chris used the embroidery skills she had long ago abandoned and embroidered Victoria's name and a pair of wings into the fabric. Chris said a few words and expressed that she only wished she had known Victoria's last name so that her family could know what happened to their daughter.

Jack had Gibbs, Anamaria, Athos, and Cotton sail the _Revenge_. He wanted to find Norrington and give it to him as a prize in return for the commodore dispersing the women of the _Revenge_ back to their true homes. "I'm not going to go traipsing around the Caribbean with the _Pearl_ as a passenger ship, am I? No." He also did his best to check in on the resting Chris frequent and often, and learned all that had happened in bits and pieces.

Three days after the _Revenge_ had been captured the _Resolute_ appeared on the horizon. All of three ships ran up flags of truce, and when the ships had lined up three abreast, grappling hooks and boards were thrown across so that all three ships were connected. "I see that you found the ship." Norrington said with half of a smile when he came to the plank thrown across the _Pearl_ and the _Resolute _and found his sister standing at the pirate captain's side.

"We did. We brought the _Revenge_ so that you may take her sailors and return them to their homes." Jack replied.

"Ah. So I see." Norrington said something to Gillette and he disappeared shortly, only to return with a leather pouch which he then handed to the commodore. "For the prize." Norrington threw the leather pouch across the gap between the ships, and Jack caught it with one hand. It clinked with the tell-tale sound of coins inside. "I'll have Gillette take command of the _Revenge_, if you please Captain Sparrow." Jack nodded, and the pirates disembarked from the former privateer ship and Royal Navy sailors tramped across the deck of the _Pearl_ to board the _Revenge_. While this occurred, Chris looked at her brother.

"Jamie… Thank you." She said. "Thank you for sending Jack after me."

"Yes, well." Norrington replied with his half smile. "I have to keep an eye on my Thimble, don't I?" If Chris had been just a slight bit more womanly or perhaps on her moon cycle, she would have cried. Chris nodded and smiled at her brother.

With the Navy sailors aboard the _Revenge_, the grappling hooks were removed from the former privateer ship, as well as the planks. Norrington looked to Jack and said, "If that's all, we'll just take the _Revenge_ and let you alone, Captain Sparrow." He turned to shout an order, but Jack stopped him.

"Actually, do ye have a priest on board?" The pirate captain asked.

"Of course we do to administer to the dead. Why do you ask?" Norrington asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Jack turned, grabbed Chris' hand, and squeezed it. "Would he perform a marriage?"

Chris turned to look at Jack. "Sparrow…" She stuttered. If he was playing with her, she was going to kick him in the jewels _so_ hard.

"Ye will, won't ye Chris? That way, ye can't leave me anytime ye want and get into another mess like this." Jack turned to her and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear before grinning at her. Chris didn't say anything. She just squeezed Jack's hand even tighter and grinned. Jack may sometimes be a disaster, but Chris wanted him to be hers. She didn't care that he had imperfections and wasn't necessarily inclined to monogamy. She loved him exactly the way he was, and she never wanted to be parted from him again.

"I… I believe he would, I shall go ask." Norrington stuttered before turning and heading below.

Half an hour later, Jack in his jacket and hat, Chris in her shirt, damask bandana, and breeches, the crew of the _Black Pearl_ and the _Revenge_, Norrington and a few Navy sailors, and the priest were standing before the _Pearl's_ wheel. The priest was an old, shriveled man, and when he had been asked to administer a pirate wedding, some thought he may keel over and die right there, but he accepted as long as he was escorted by Navy sailors.

"We've come together here in the sight of pirates, sailors, women, and hopefully God," The priest began, "To join these two together in matrimony. I am not sure if this question applies, but does anyone give this woman away?"

There was a pause, and then Norrington stepped forward. "I do." He removed his hat and linked arms with his sister.

"Oh Jamie…" Chris whispered, and tears blurred her vision. Damn it, there she went acting like a woman again. Norrington simply patted her arm and they turned to the priest.

The priest looked like he was going to faint at this development. "Do you give her on your own free will?" He asked, his voice heightening in pitch.

Norrington considered the thought. "I do." With that, he handed Chris' arm over to Jack. The pirate captain nodded at Norrington and linked arms with his bride, but not before she gave her brother a peck on the cheek. The two pirates turned to the priest and the commodore took a step back and continued to observe.

The priest wheezed. "Alright. Christiana Thomas, do you take this man to be your husband?"

"I do." Chris replied. She felt like this was nothing but a dream, but with the sun warming her face and the wind blowing through her hair, she knew it was real.

The priest continued. "And Jack Sparrow—"

"_Captain_, father." Jack corrected. The members of his crew chuckled.

"_Captain_ Jack Sparrow, do you take this woman as your wife?" The priest asked.

"I do."

The priest was beginning to sweat profusely, whether from disbelief or anxiety, no one knew. "Does anyone have rings?" He asked without conviction.

"Hold on one second, father." Jack patted himself down and pulled out two rings, both plain and gold. "I measured yours while you slept." Jack whispered as he slid Chris' band onto her left ring finger. He handed Chris the other one and she did the same to him. Chris smiled at Jack and he returned the expression, his golden teeth glinting in the sun.

The priest now continued in a rush. "By the power vested in me by His Majesty's Royal Navy and the Church of England, I pronounce you man and wife. You may – Dear Lord!"

Jack had lurched forward and joined his lips to Chris before picking her up and swinging her about before touching her back down on the deck, and then he bent her backwards before finishing the kiss. It seemed the priest had seen enough, and he promptly stormed off the _Pearl_, murmuring curses that Chris didn't know a priest would know. The crew of the _Black Pearl_ cheered and threw their hats, bandanas, and someone even tossed Cotton's Parrot and Loki into the air in celebration. They both screeched and one flew into the rigging while the other streaked to Ragetti. Norrington replaced his hat and approached the newlyweds. "Well…" He said, but then he seemed lost for words. "Fair tides to you." He stated. The commodore nodded before crying, "All Royal Navy sailors back to the _Resolute_!" They filed from the _Pearl_, grappling hooks and planks were removed, and the _Resolute_ and _Revenge_ began to sail away.

Jack barked out a few orders, his arm around Chris' waist and a smile upon both their faces. "Anamaria, take the helm. Have the sails catch every breath of wind and let's make for Madagascar! Triple rum rations for all!" There was another cheer at that. Jack's hold on Chris' waist tightened. "And ye, Chris." He turned to her, his grin widening. "I want to see ye in the Captain's cabin, immediately." And with that, the _Pearl_ sailed away into the sunset.

oOo

He drowns in his dreams  
An exquisite extreme I know  
He's as damned as he seems  
But more heaven than a heart could hold

And if I try to save him  
My whole world would cave in  
It just ain't right  
Lord, it just ain't right

Oh when I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster

And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Lord, would it be beautiful?  
Or just a beautiful disaster

He's magic and myth  
As strong as what I believe  
A tragedy with  
More damage than a soul should see

But do I try to change him?  
So hard not to blame him  
Hold me tight  
Baby, hold on tight

Oh when I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster

And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful?  
Or just a beautiful disaster

I'm longing for love and the logical  
But he's only happy hysterical  
I'm searching for some kind of miracle  
Waited so long  
I've waited so long

He's soft to the touch  
But afraid at the end he breaks  
He's never enough  
And still he's more than I can take

Oh when I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster

And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful?  
Or just a beautiful disaster

He's beautiful  
Lord, he's so beautiful  
He's beautiful…


	15. The Shipwreck &

**Chapter Fifteen  
The Shipwreck**

Days after the _Black Pearl_ had begun her journey to Madagascar, Jack and Chris were languishing in the captain's cabin. Since their marriage, the pair had spent more time inside the captain's cabin than not. Of course they would appear for their obligatory watch every day, but other than that, the captain and quartermaster were enjoying the fruits of married life.

This morning, Chris lay on her stomach, her modesty protected by the sheets entwined about her body and her gaze fixed her husband. _Husband_. She had never been able to before give that name to a person. She smiled as she thought about it, and Jack looked at her. "What are ye smilin' about, love?" He asked. He was sitting up against the headboard, his body bare of any cloth above his waist, save for his bandana atop his head. He reached for Chris' hand and upon lacing their fingers together he swung their hands back and forth gently.

The woman chuckled. "Just that I get to call ye 'husband,' husband." She leaned forward and kissed Jack's hand.

"I see, wifie." Jack replied, grinning.

"'Wifie?'" Chris asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Ye don't like it, I won't be giving ye any more kisses." Jack grinned devilishly. Chris laughed and pulled herself up to give her husband a kiss. She sank down onto Jack's chest and he put and arm around the woman to hold her. "Hey Chris, I have a question – How long have ye fancied me?"

"Why? I'm married to ye, aren't I?" Chris asked.

Jack rubbed her shoulder with his thumb. "I think I fancied ye from the first moment I landed eyes on ye. But ye were with Torin, and he seemed pretty protective of ye. Plus, you were kind of a girl back then, so there was that –"

"I think ye just made me nauseous." Chris said. Jack puckered his lips at her and she laughed.

"So I told you, now you tell me." Jack said, moving his chin so that it rested upon Chris' head.

Chris bit her lip in thought before speaking. "Remember the night you told me about the curse and Barbossa? And then you dared me to out-drink you?"

"I remember you failed miserably, aye." Jack replied.

She smiled at the memory. "That's when I knew." Chris said. "But o' course, you were my captain, so I didn't give any weight to it."

"Ye held out a long time, love. I commend you." Jack pushed Chris off of his chest so she could survey him as he next spoke. "Especially when ye have this prime visage of a man that is so tempting to every sense!" Jack flexed his arms and puffed out his chest. "Your self control is exceptional!"

Chris shook her head at her husband as there came a rapping on the door. She grabbed her shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head, Jack pulled his jacket from where it hung on the headboard on, and the two settled themselves in bed as though they were just having a simple conversation. "Come on in." Jack bade.

Gibbs entered, Loki upon his shoulder. If there had been one thing Jack was most vehement about since their marriage, it was that Loki had to stay above except for at night. Jack murmured something about not wanting any appendages bit off by the little ape in an attempt to protect his master from a perceived attack, and so Loki stayed above as long as the sun was in the sky. Chris had made a note to change that soon.

"Captain, Chris." Gibbs couldn't help but flash a knowing smirk at the two, which told them both that their attempts to appear un-intimate had not fooled him. "There's a shipwreck off the starboard bow. There's no movement aboard, and it's the damndest thing I ever did lay my eyes upon. There are no shoals or reefs, and yet half of the ship still floats."

Jack and Chris looked at each other. "Get as close as you can and we'll tender jolly boats over to search for survivors. We'll be up shortly."

"But ye already appear to be dressed, Captain. Why not come up now?" Gibbs asked, his eyes twinkling. Loki cocked his head to the side and chirped.

"Gibbs…" Jack said, his tone full of warning. Gibbs grinned and bowed out of the cabin. As soon as the door was closed, man and woman hopped from the bed and gathered their abandoned articles of clothing and pulled them on. Once they were fittingly attired, Jack opened the door, and bent at the waist for Chris to exit first.

As she passed him, his hand came forward to give her a cheeky slap on the rump. She turned and said, "You may be my husband Sparrow, but that doesn't mean I won't throttle you if I feel the need!"

Jack smiled at Chris. "Wouldn't dream of it otherwise, love." The captain and quartermaster dispersed in opposite directions, Jack to the bridge and Chris into the top. She could observe, as she came to a stop on a yardarm, that the ship that had wrecked no longer possessed a bow. The ship had been a schooner before it crashed, and its make caused Chris to become slightly nostalgic and think of her days aboard the _Branwyn_. As she inspected the ship, she saw that some unknown force seemed to have crushed the hull of the ship, breaking the bow all the way to the mainmast. The bow was now in splinters, and Chris indeed had no idea how it could stay afloat, but the stern end indeed was still protruding from the water and did not seem to be sinking. That was odd; something was afoot.

The _Black Pearl_ drew closer and Chris saw that the ship had been named _Lambert's Legend_. Chris thought the name odd, and the name Lambert ringed a bell. Her thoughts were taken elsewhere, though, as Jack called, "Get back down here, Chris!" She zipped down to the deck and landed beside Gibbs and Jack as Athos and Marty dropped the anchor. Loki leaped from the shoulder of the first mate to that of the quartermaster as Jack spoke, giving her an affectionate nip on the ear upon arrival. "Since ye're the quartermaster and supposed to head boarding parties anyway, ye'll take a couple jolly boats over and search for survivors and salvageable supplies."

"Of course." Chris replied, nodding. "What if it's Royal Navy, Jack?"

Jack tapped his chin in thought. "Tell 'em we'll take 'em to a nearby port and let them off in exchange for them not killing us. I think it's reasonable."

Chris went down to give orders for the jolly boats to be launched. She picked Anamaria, Athos, Cotton, Pintel, and she was going to choose Ragetti to come as well, but she saw neither hair nor hide of him. "Where's Rags?" She questioned as the first of the jolly boats was hoisted over the side. She sat a canvas bag which contained a grappling hook and line, a lantern and flint, a canteen of fresh water, and some hardtack into the boat and made sure her rapier was about her waist.

"'e and Sarah have been doin' exactly what ye and the captain have been doin' for the past week." Pintel stated. Athos snickered behind him and Anamaria struck him on the chest. Chris shook her head and climbed into the jolly boat.

"Follow after me then." She commanded. Pintel and Cotton winched her down and once she hit the water, she removed the lines and took up two oars. She began rowing towards the shipwreck of _Lambert's Legend_. Chris was rowing so that her back was to the wreck, but she and Loki continually looked behind them to make sure that they weren't about to crash into what was left of the floating ship, and Chris also looked for any sign of what caused the wreck or sustained it in the water. The only thing she saw in the dark water was an occasional shimmer of color whose source was a mystery to her. Soon, two other jolly boats were following her.

As soon as Chris came close enough to the wreck to be able to board, she halted in her rowing and pulled the grappling hook and line from the canvas bag. She tied the hook to the line and then tied some knots, each about a foot apart, along the length of the line. Chris lobbed the hook up onto deck and pulled until it caught on something. She tested her weight upon it before deciding it was secure enough to climb up. As she tied the line to the jolly boat so that it wouldn't float away, she realized she had seen no movement aboard _Lambert's Legend_. A shiver ran down Chris' spine, but she grabbed the lantern and flint and climbed up the line.

Upon landing on the deck, Chris found it deserted. She looked up to the bridge and saw the wheel spinning slowly, and then with a cursory glance she saw no sign of jolly boats. She listened for any sound from below, but she heard nothing, not even the creak of wood. This was odd, not to mention spooky. While it took a bit to scare Chris, this was strange and didn't make sense. She waited for the other pirates to board so that they could draw out a battle plan on how to search the ship. When the four pirates plunked down behind her, she turned and said, "Alright, this is what I figure. Pint, Anamaria, check the captain's cabin. If no one's in there, try and find the captain's log." The pair nodded and Chris looked to Cotton and Athos. "Ye two check the galley and the storage holds. Any salvageable supplies should be brought up."

Cotton's Parrot squawked, "Anchors aweigh!" in agreement. Loki glared at the bird.

"Pint and Anamaria, help them when ye're done. I'll check the cabins and officer's mess and then the brig. If ye find anyone, bring them here and we'll move 'em all down into the jolly boats at once. If ye get into any trouble, yell, or if ye can't yell…" Chris searched her skull for a code phrase that wouldn't be suspicious. They'd be quite far apart from each other, and the others were going to be in pairs anyway. "Well, if ye can't yell, I suppose ye'll be fightin', aye?" There was a murmur of assent. "Alright. Meet back here when ye're done.

With that, the pirates dispersed. Chris and Loki were accompanied by Athos and Cotton down to the galley, and then they were left alone. Chris lit the lantern to light their way and she continued down the stairwell. When she came to the deck that should contain the officer's mess and any passenger cabins, she found no one. What she did find were signs that the cabins had recently been vacated, and in a hurry at that. Chairs had been knocked over, clothing was strewn about one of the cabins, and one of the rooms had been torn apart. This didn't sit well with Chris, but she began thinking that maybe all souls aboard had simply abandoned ship.

As she continued down into the bowels of the ship, she found the darkness surrounding her to be suffocating. Not even the gun ports on the gunnery deck were open, and all of the portholes had been covered. As she stepped off the last stair into the brig, she found herself calf deep in water. Chillingly, she recalled the last time she had been in a flooded brig in a similar situation. She had found Elizabeth Turner then, starved and a bit detached from reality. Loki let out a soft moan of warning before suddenly arching his back and baring his teeth. "What is it, mate?" Chris asked.

"Who's there?" Someone cried out from the darkness. "I have a gun! I'll shoot you!"

Chris raised her lantern above her head to cast light not only on herself, but her surroundings. She found the brig's cell directly ahead of her, the door closed, and she saw pale, bare feet connecting to legs that then vanished into the darkness standing upon the bench. "My name is Chris. I'm here to help."

"Chris? I knew a Chris once… Gone, just like all the others! Gone!" The voice was masculine, and its owner sounded slightly cracked. "Are you with _Her_? Did she send you to come lure me out? It won't work!"

_Great_. Not only was Chris several decks away from her friends, but it appeared she had encountered a paranoid loon with a gun. "Now, now. I'm here to rescue you. My captain saw this ship and sent me to help –" There was a wild splashing noise from the splintered part of the brig. The timbers had fallen over one another so that no light could enter, so Chris didn't know what it was. The splashing grew more insistent and Chris could hear an odd screeching sound. Loki growled and bared his teeth before hissing himself.

"They're back! _Oh God, they're back_!" The man shrieked, his toes curling.

"What's back?" Chris asked. She could feel the hair rise on the back of her neck, and goose bumps bubble up her skin. Something was definitely not right, and it didn't take the crazy man's screaming to get the thought into Chris' head.

"The naiads! They found me!" Chris knew she wouldn't get any answers from the man as long as he was in the brig. She raised the lantern high and looked for the key to the brig. Unsurprisingly, it was hung on a nail in the wall. It never stopped to astonish Chris just how many ships kept the freedom to those inside their brigs in such an accessible place, but now wasn't the time to complain. She grabbed the key, feeling Loki stiffen even further and hiss even louder as she ventured further into the brig to unlock the door. When it swung open the man howled, "No! No, now they can get in!"

Chris disregarded him and instead, she raised her lantern to find the face of a man that, when not contorted in horror and madness, could be the face of a very handsome man about her age. His hair was blond and his eyes a fierce cobalt, but several day's worth of stubble dotted his face and his hands were clenched into fists. He swung at Chris, but she figured the nutter might, and so she ducked before popping back up and catching his fist. She twisted his arm and he cried out in pain as something popped. "Now listen to me: if you want to survive and get a ride off this barkie, you'll shut that mad trap of yours and –" The splashing was louder and nearer, and Chris felt something like a shockwave through the water.

"We have to go!" The man howled, suddenly very keen on the idea of leaving. He leaped off the bench and into the water, shaking himself free of Chris' grasp before he bounded up the stairwell before turning back to Chris. "Come on!"

Chris looked to where the splashing was coming from, but her lantern did not cast enough light. She splashed through the water, heading for the stairs, and felt something glide past her leg. "What –?" She asked, pausing.

"No! No, that's how they get you! Run!" The man cried. Chris picked up her feet again as she felt something scaly and fluid brush her leg again. She leaped onto the bottom step of the stairs and turned to see what had touched her. All she saw was the flip of the water and a triangle of translucent white, and the water was still. Loki shrieked violently, causing Chris to wince and her ears to ring.

She turned to the man and said, "What the bloody Hell was touching me?"

The man began to tremble. "It… It was –" His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he promptly keeled backward. He hit the railing and slumped down, unconscious.

Chris sighed and glared at him. "Wanker."

She drug the man's body up one deck, for she didn't want whatever had been in the water to eat him or something while she found help because she wanted answers once he awoke. She found Pintel and Anamaria exiting the captain's cabin, their search for any survivors and the captain's log fruitless. They followed the quartermaster down to the unconscious man and carried him up to the main deck. The pirates, monkey, and unconscious man were soon joined by Athos and Cotton, who had only been able to salvage a couple bags of oats.

It took some doing, but the man was lowered into Chris' jolly boat and the bags of oats were tossed into one of the others. Just as Athos, the last off the ship, settled into his jolly boat, the ship gave a great shudder and began to sink with amazing speed. "Row or it'll suck us under!" Anamaria ordered. The pirates rowed furiously, their muscles straining, as air bubbles billowed up from the depths and the ship groaned. As Chris rowed, she couldn't help but notice that she thought she saw the flips of several colors in the water below, almost like translucent ribbons that were being flicked in bright sunlight. She pushed those thoughts out of her head though, for she certainly didn't want to be pulled down along with _Lambert's Legend_. The jolly boats cleared the ship's suction, and within minutes, not a single scrap of the ship remained.

When the jolly boats were winched up, Jack and Gibbs were waiting to greet those on board. "He's it?" Jack asked, looking at the unconscious blond man thrown over one of the benches in Chris' jolly boat.

"Yes, and he's an absolute lunatic if you ask me." Chris said, suddenly very dismissive of the splashing entity in the brig now that she was back in broad daylight. She reached over and with a grunt, pulled the man from the boat by hooking her arms under his shoulders. He crumpled on the deck and Chris sighed, turning to Gibbs and Jack. "Where should we put him?"

Jack tapped his chin in thought. "We don't want to send him into fear by puttin' 'im in the brig. Doesn't your cabin have a lock upon it?"

"Aye, but from the inside." Chris replied.

"Gibbs, help Chris take him down there, but I want you," Jack pointed at Chris, "to stay with him until we wakes up with the lock thrown. Don't take your sword, but keep a knife on ye just in case."

"That's comforting." Chris said, rolling her eyes. Jack grinned. Gibbs and Chris picked the man up, each taking an arm and leg, and they carried him below and into Chris' former cabin, Loki still riding upon Chris' shoulder. They entered and laid the man down on the bed.

"Ye fine with him?" Gibbs asked, casting the man a wary eye. "I'm not sure if having a shipwreck survivor onboard is good luck…"

Chris smiled softly, very decidedly determined not to tell Gibbs about the splashing in the brig. Or anyone else, perhaps. "I'm sure we're fine." She said firmly. "But if you could bring me some water and something for him to eat when he wakes up…?" Gibbs nodded and left, returning a few minutes later with a covered bowl of steaming burgoo and the canteen from the jolly boat.

"We'll be listening for anything funny." Gibbs said, handing her a knife in its scabbard.

"I'll be fine, mate." Chris smiled and Gibbs slowly exited the cabin. Once the door closed, Chris flipped the lock on the door that was spaced right beneath the doorknob. It was a simple flat of wood that fell into a bracket right next to the door. Chris had never tested its strength before, but she wasn't worried. She and Loki sat at her desk, and it occurred to her that she needed to move things like her screen, chest of disguises, and other items to the captain's cabin now that she was married. She touched the golden ring on her left hand and smiled to herself.

It wasn't long before the man came around. His eyes began rolling back into his head and he moaned. Chris moved her chair from the desk to face the bed, and she sat with both her hands in her lap. Her left hand shielded the scabbard from view, and her right hand lay upon the handle, so all she needed to do was draw the blade if the man started acting violent. The man gave another moan and his blue eyes opened before focusing. He looked up at the ceiling and then to Chris. He didn't panic like she thought he would; instead he pulled himself to a sitting position and asked, "Where am I?"

"You're in a cabin aboard the _Black Pearl_." Chris replied calmly. "Your ship has sunk, and we'll take you to a port and let you off there, mate." She was astonished that the man wasn't babbling and acting as erratic as he had aboard _Lambert's Legend_. "Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

"Both." The man replied. Chris continued to shield the knife with her left hand as she turned and took the canteen from her desk. She handed it to the man, followed by the still-warm burgoo. She waited for the man to glug down some water and tuck into the burgoo before asking, "Now how did your ship come to be wrecked?"

The man shook his head and spoke with his mouth full. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Chris frowned. She'd press that later; right now he was in possession of objects her could throw at her. She didn't want to agitate him. And she was heartened that he hadn't reacted to the knowledge of being on the _Black Pearl_ as a pirate ship. "My name is Chris Th – Sparrow." That's right, she was married now. "What's yours?"

The man dodged her question. "I knew a Chris once, and she was a girl too. You both actually look a lot alike, but she's – Well, God knows where." The man shoveled the rest of the burgoo into his mouth and washed it down with a slurp from the canteen. "Certainly not somewhere wearing breeches and rescuing souls from shipwrecks."

Chris pursed her lips together. "Listen, if ye want to be called something other than 'Wanker,' I need to know your name." Loki screeched in agreement from her shoulder.

The man sat his empty burgoo bowl down on the floor and took another drink from the canteen before capping it. "My name's Adam." He said. "You could say I don't know you from Eve." He laughed at his own joke, and all the sudden, the ship's name clicked in Chris' head. Lambert was Adam's last name and finding an Adam in the shipwreck, an Adam who possessed blue eyes and blond hair like Adam did – It couldn't be coincidence! Certainly not!

"Adam Lambert." Chris said slowly. He looked up at her sharply. "This Chris, you speak of, what happened to her?"

Adam stared at Chris and was silent. He nodded and then shook his head. "Well," he said, "It looks like she turned into a salty sailor. Well met, Christiana Tree."

"As are you, Adam's Apple." Neither rose to embrace the other, as Chris might have with another old friend. After all, the last memory she really possessed of Adam had been of him abandoning their friendship when she told him of her engagement to Lord Malcolm so many years ago. They hadn't last parted on good terms.

"Aren't women aboard ships supposed to be bad luck?" Adam asked, rolling his head to the side.

"I think right now our superstitious connoisseurs on board are leaning more towards your presence as being bad luck right now, mate." Chris replied, thinking of Gibbs.

"Well stop sitting there and come give us a kiss!" Adam said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and opening up his arms to Chris.

She pulled her head back and furrowed her brow. "I'm married, mate. If you didn't notice by me not sayin' my name was Chris Thomas."

"I didn't say on the lips, now did I?" Adam asked, raising his eyebrows. Chris rose and kissed him on the cheek cautiously, keeping the knife tucked against her left side as she did. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" Adam asked. "So, I suppose since you're married, I can't convince you to run off with me once we get to port –"

Chris, for some reason, was becoming very uncomfortable with his banter, and so she stopped him. "Adam, I've not seen you for the better part of this decade. I suggest you slake whatever lust you might have, mate."

Adam looked at his old friend and then hung his head. "I'm just all fuzzy from the shipwreck. I apologize, Chris."

"Good." Chris sat once more. "What have you been up to since we last saw one another?" She asked.

"Just took over things for the old man." Adam said dismissively. "He passed about the same time your mother did.

"I'm sorry, Adam –" Chris began.

Adam waved it away. "Glad to see that I wasn't the one to first inform you of your mother. She was a good woman. Which my life lacks." He laughed, and it was a strange, bark of laughter. Chris continued to feel uncomfortable as Adam asked, "What about you? Who's your husband? Not that Lord Malcolm, right? Heard he died."

"No. I'm married to Captain Jack Sparrow –" At this, Adam's eyes widened and Chris smiled wryly. "I see you know him."

"Wait, you said we were on the _Black Pearl_?" He asked. Chris nodded. "Oh God, you're a pirate?"

"Yes –" Chris began, but Adam interrupted her.

"God, pirates!" He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled at the ends for a moment before letting his hands fall back to his lap. He laughed. "Well, suppose it's better than where I was…" Adam looked to the porthole and then back to Chris. "How long until we reach land?"

Chris shrugged. "We're in the middle of the Atlantic, it will take time to reach a pirate-friendly port –"

"I didn't say port, did I?" Adam snapped. "I said land, when will we reach land?"

Chris was alarmed. Adam had changed so much since they had last met. He seemed severe and coarse, not like the kind and easy adolescent he had once been. "I don't know. And I suggest you mind your tone, Adam. I could have left you in that wreck."

"Maybe you should have." The man replied, his tone biting.

Chris frowned in dismay. "Just how did your ship become wrecked?" She asked. Adam looked at her with slit eyes.

"Let's talk about something else."

"No, we're going to talk about just what exactly smashed the hull of your bow to the mainmast and left you afloat until the very minute I plucked you off that doomed bark, and we're going to talk about it now." Chris said firmly. Loki paced her shoulders, sensing her agitation.

Adam laughed softly and shook his head. "God, you've changed. But then again, I suppose every person who becomes a pirate compromises some of themselves in the doing." Chris stared at the man hard, and after a few seconds, he relented. "You're not going to believe me." He said, resting his forearms upon his knees and holding his head in his hands.

"Try me."

Adam breathed in deeply. "More than a year ago, I was noticing there were strange markings on the shore of that pond we used to swim in, you know, by the weeping willow?" Chris nodded, remembering their play place from their youth. "It was almost like someone was slapping a triangle feather against the sand and leaving marks. It was curious, nothing else, and I never saw the thing. So I decided to make camp one night and see if I could find what it was.

"Around midnight, I was about to give up because it was freezing, but then a splashing noise awoke me. I lifted my lantern, and in the middle of the pond I saw a white shimmer and the water rippled. My breath caught in my chest, I watched as a woman with long red hair and a bare torso surfaced from the middle of the lake. Her face had pointed features, but most astonishing was her ears. They were pointed at the tips." Adam breathed in. "She was beautiful, so beautiful…" His eyes misted over as he recalled the memory.

Chris was listening avidly. "And?" She asked, bidding him to continue.

Adam smiled slyly at the quartermaster. "I called out, 'Miss, do you need any assistance?'" Adam seemed to be staring off into the distance as he remembered. "She smiled and flipped backward in the water, and as she did – Her lower half was not the lower half of a maiden. It was scaly, and she had the tail of a fish!" The man rubbed his face. "I was too alarmed, and so I dropped the lantern into the pond and ran the entire way home. In the morning, I was convinced it was a trick of the light of my lantern, and so I returned to the pond for it. When I approached, the lantern was partially submerged in the water. So I grabbed the handle, and when I pulled, she came out of the water with it." Adam shuddered. "I fell back and asked, 'What do you want?' And she smiled again. She said her name was Narissa, and she was a naiad…" Adam stopped right there and turned to Chris. "Ever since then, anywhere I go near bodies of water, she's there. And when I told her to leave me alone – Things started… happening." He stopped.

Something in his tone made Chris want to hear more. "What things?" She pressed. She had heard legends of mermaids, but she had never before met someone who claimed to have actually spoken or interacted with one. But then again, Adam had been lacking sanity a short while ago…

"Our livestock were found drowned at the streams, water turned salty…" Adam shuddered. "It was terrorizing my mother, so I decided to set sail and check up on our assets in the Caribbean, and hopefully whatever was causing this to happen would leave my mother alone. It followed me." Adam swallowed hard. "The crew of the ship reported seeing an unusual amount of dolphins that were oddly colored around the ship, and after we were far enough out to sea… The naiads attacked.

"Narissa had amassed hundreds of them, and somehow they – I don't know, it was dark, but all the sudden the bow crumpled like it had run head-on into something. We took on some water, but we didn't sink." Adam grimaced. "I don't know how or why, but the crew knew that I was the problem. They threw me in the brig and then abandoned ship." He heaved a sigh. "That's how our ship wrecked."

Chris didn't know what to think. His story was told with such conviction, and she had seen her fair share of fantastic things, especially since sailing with Jack. But mermaids… She remembered the triangle of translucent white in the water of the brig on the sinking ship. "Was she… Was she the splashing in the brig, Adam?" He nodded. Chris breathed in and stood, leaning down to pick up the burgoo bowl. "I need to speak with my captain –"

Adam grabbed the hand that held the bowl. "You believe me, don't you?" He asked, his eyes frantic. Chris looked down into his eyes that were a similar shade of blue to hers.

"I believe you, Adam. But I need to tell my captain." Chris said soothingly. "Let me go." Adam did, and Chris walked to the door, flicking the lock. "Don't leave this cabin." She closed the door and a tremor ran through her. Either he was a complete lunatic, or… Chris wasn't certain. She needed to find not only Jack, but Gibbs.

After she returned the bowl to the galley and stuffed the knife in the waist of her trousers, she found Jack and Gibbs on the bridge. With a nod, she beckoned them to the captain's cabin. Once all three and the monkey were inside, Chris closed the door and said, "We may have a problem."

"Did you stab him?" Jack asked. Chris smiled sardonically.

"He said –" She took a deep breath and cast a look at Gibbs. Once she said this, there was no going back. _Oh, to Hell with it_! "He said that the ship wrecked because of mermaids."

Jack did not show skepticism; instead he turned to Gibbs. "Mr. Gibbs, what do you think about this?" He and Chris waited as Gibbs, who had turned slightly ashen, gathered his thoughts.

"Mermaids aren't unheard of, no they aren't." He began. "Some say they foretell death and destruction. Others think they're naught but remnants of the Greek sirens." Gibbs opened his mouth and then shut it before asking, "Did he say why?"

"Something about a mermaid named Narissa following him and then wanting to get back at him or something." Chris replied. Jack cast an odd look at her.

Gibbs turned even paler. "It's said that mermaids who fall in love with men can curse them if their love's not returned, and that the curse won't be lifted unless – Unless the man is dead." Chris recoiled at this. "We're in a bad way if he's on board, captain." The first mate informed his captain earnestly.

Jack tapped his chin. "First we should –" But he was interrupted at the _Black Pearl_ suddenly came to a groaning halt. Chris was nearest the door, so when the _Pearl_ just stopped moving, the remaining motion threw her into the door, shortly followed by the first mate and captain. Loki shrieked as the door opened and all three tumbled onto the main deck. If it was in another situation, some cheeky insinuations would have been shouted from the top, but at the moment every person aboard was trying to right themselves or hanging onto the swinging rigging for dear life. Loki lit from his master into the rigging as soon as he was back on his paws, and Chris looked to the top as she picked herself up. She saw that the sails were still full with wind, but the ship was simply not moving.

"Did the capstans to the anchors give way?" Jack asked once he stood, adjusting his hat. Marty replied that they had not.

"There's no reason why we're stopped!" Marty called. "We're not hung up on a reef or anything!"

Gibbs complexion was very comparable to the color of fresh milk. "It begins." He said ominously.

"We're getting that bloke off my ship!" Jack announced, and with that, he turned and headed for the stairs into the forecastle deck.

"Jack!" Chris caught up with him before Gibbs did. "Jack, the man, he's – He's a friend from my past, Adam –"

"I know; I was listening at the door." Jack said, turning to his wife. At her shocked face he said, "I just about burst in when he asked ye for a kiss too. We'll talk about that later, granted we survive this."

"But we can't just throw him overboard!" Chris protested.

Gibbs caught up with them. "Would you rather all of us die and not just he?"

"This isn't right!" Chris objected, but she could not do anything but watch as Jack whipped open her cabin door and entered, Gibbs right behind him. Adam was still upon the bed, and he looked up in surprise as the pirate captain, first mate, and quartermaster entered.

"Adam, pleasure to make your acquaintance, I believe you're a friend of my wife's." Jack said very briskly, "But I have a question: Feel our lack of movement?" Adam nodded. "I think it's exactly because of you, and you know the reason why. So –"

"Put me off." Adam said, interrupting Jack. Not only had the captain's mouth opened in surprise, but so did Chris'. "I…" He sighed and smiled at Chris. "I can't be selfish and endanger an old friend. I guess she would have caught up with me sooner or later." He pulled himself from the bed.

Chris' mind was in a whirl. In the past hour she had been reacquainted with one of her oldest friends and then heard of the existence of mermaids, and now he was going to sacrifice himself for the sake of the crew of the _Black Pearl_? Chris felt dizzy.

Jack nodded. "Good man. Follow us." Gibbs and Jack left the cabin first and Chris turned to Adam.

"Adam –"

Adam hushed her. "You're married. You have a life. I don't." He sighed. "I don't."

"But we've just met again after –" Chris protested.

"Chris! Get him above!" Jack barked from the companionway.

Chris sighed. "Our friendship is not supposed to end this way. It wasn't supposed to end the way it did."

Adam smiled softly. "I guess that's just how it'll have to be, eh Christiana Tree?" He thumbed her chin before leaving the cabin. The quartermaster felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Adam had been the first boy she fancied, she had dreamed of marrying him when she was young, and now – Oh, for him to meet such an end…

Once Adam was on deck, a jolly boat was winched over the side. Adam stepped into it, and Pintel, Anamaria, Jack, Gibbs, and Chris lowered it. Adam looked so lonely, so forlorn going to his doom. Chris knew they were little more than strangers at this point in their lives, but she couldn't let him meet his fate alone. She let go of her section of rope and in one fluid motion, swung herself over the bulkhead and landed in the bow of the jolly boat. Adam looked at her in surprise, and Jack poked his head over the side.

"Damn it, Chris! What are you doing?" He hissed.

"No one should have to die alone." She replied, looking up at her husband with defiance in her face.

"Damn it, girl!" Jack threw a line into the jolly boat. "Get back up here!"

"No." Chris replied.

"I'll throw myself into the water so that she'll remain unharmed. You have my word." Adam called up to the captain. Jack scowled and the jolly boat continued to be lowered. Once it touched the water, Chris cast off the ties and she and Adam both grabbed an oar and began rowing away from the _Pearl_.

"You have my thanks, Chris." Adam said as they rowed.

"Even though we didn't leave on good terms the last time we parted, I did not want that to happen again, Adam." Chris replied. "You're one of my oldest friends."

Adam smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry I became upset when you were engaged to Lord Malcolm. I suppose it wasn't your fault, really." He sighed. "I had just thought –"

"We would marry?" Chris finished. He nodded, surprised. "So had I. I forgive you, friend." Adam smiled at his friend and sighed.

As the jolly boat pulled away from the _Pearl_, any bird that may be flying above would observe a curious phenomenon happening in the water. Triangular shapes of color in the water sped forth from beneath the ship and the surrounding water, slowly coming to surround the jolly boat as the rowers continued their action. So many colors in such a great number surrounded the jolly boat that soon the water was no longer blue, but a stained glass window of colors. Those aboard the _Black Pearl_ saw it too, as did those in the jolly boat.

The jolly boat suddenly came to a halt, just as the _Pearl_ had, and Chris and Adam set their oars down. The boat didn't even bob with the motion of the sea; it stayed stone still. Adam took a deep breath and looked to Chris. "Thank you for coming with me." He said softly. Chris simply nodded, her lips pursed. Adam thumbed a piece of hair from her face. "Let my mother know?"

"I will." Chris breathed. Adam smiled at her and stood. He walked to the bow and looked down into all the triangles of color in the water. Chris could now see that each triangle of color was the lower-half of the bodies of hundreds of mermaids. No two mermaids shared tails the same color, and all of the mermaids wore no clothing on their female torsos, but their long hair usually hid their bare breasts. As Adam was about to dive in, a mermaid with a translucent white tail suddenly surfaced, her red hair blanketing her shoulders and chest. Her eyes were murky, and at moments seemed to be blue, at others green, and still sometimes they looked gray. In her arms, she held something that looked like a bundle of seaweed. Adam lurched backward, but the boat didn't rock.

"Why did you run, Adam?" The mermaid asked. Her voice was odd, almost as though it was made solely of trickling water. Chris had never heard anything like it.

"You were killing my livestock, you salted our wells!" Adam cried, pointing accusingly at the mermaid. She hooded her eyes.

"If you had simply come back to the pond after that day, we wouldn't have had to go through all of this."

Adam swallowed audibly. "Fine. Fine!" He tore open his shirt, exposing his chest. He thrust his upper torso over the side of the boat. "Spear me in the heart! Make it quick; just don't take my body with you Narissa! Allow it to be buried on land!"

"Spear you in the heart?" Narissa echoed. "Why would I do that?" Her face was genuinely stretched in surprise.

"That's why you've done all this, to kill me, isn't it?" Adam asked.

"No." Narissa said, laughing with a sound that sounded like the patter of raindrops. "Just to give you this." She thrust the bundle of seaweed into his arms. "She doesn't belong with us, but with you." She smiled, showing faintly green teeth. "Call her Morgana." With that, she did a graceful back flip into the water, and disappeared from sight. It was as though someone had cut the ties of the other mermaids, for they instantly swam away with such speed that the water departed from the jolly boat as if in a wave. Just like that, the boat began bobbing and floating again, and the _Black Pearl_ began moving as though to make up for lost time. Chris heard the cry for the anchors to be dropped as she pulled Adam from hanging over the bow.

Adam's expression was stunned. "All that… All that for this?" He looked at the bundle of seaweed and suddenly, a cry came from it. Chris' eyes widened, as did Adam's, and their hands pulled away at the slimy plant. The seaweed parted and laying within was a small baby girl with red hair and eyes the color of Adam's.

The jolly boat rowed back to the _Pearl_ and course was set for Cape Verde off the coast of Africa. There, Adam could find passage back to England, along with baby Morgana. It turned out that Morgana was Narissa and Adam's child. When this came to light, Jack said, "What? How does – That doesn't even make sense! One of them is part fish! What – What the _bloody Hell_?" He then went into broody silence with a look from Chris. After speaking to Gibbs, they deduced that, since mermaids don't know much about land-dwellers, they must have wrecked the ship to stop Adam from leaving, but didn't realize that even if they gave the baby to him, he would be unable to return to land in a ship with a breached hull.

When the _Black Pearl_ docked in the very small seaside town called Port of Ingles, Chris insisted that she handle the travel plans for Adam and Morgana back to England. Anamaria came along as translator, for the port was Spanish speaking, and Spanish wasn't exactly Chris' forte. Passage was booked on a small freighter heading for Dover, and Chris saw Morgana and Adam to the ship. Since the _Black Pearl_ possessed no baby clothes, Chris had once more pulled up her long abandoned sewing skills and sewed a few rough dresses for the little baby until she could be better accommodated, and she also made some nappies out of canvas and showed Adam how to change them, though she honestly was just making guesswork of it.

Adam turned to Chris, his daughter cradled in his arms, after he surveyed the ship that would take him home to England. "I have no idea how I'm going to explain this to my mother." He said.

Chris laughed. "Don't use the same explanation that you did when you snuck those baby rabbits into your bedroom. I'm pretty sure she'll know something's going on."

Adam laughed at the memory. "Well, it's a long voyage. I'm sure I'll have time to think up an explanation." He looked down at Morgana and smiled. "Me, a father. And a father alone at that." He looked back up to Chris. "You know, I could use a fine woman to be a mother for Morgana…"

"Anamaria and Athos are together, I'm pretty sure. And I don't think Anamaria likes kids." Chris said. Adam looked at her and she acted shocked. "Oh, you mean me! Well, I'm married."

"To a pirate." Adam reminded her.

"Well, I am a pirate, so it fits." Chris replied.

Adam sighed. "Do you want me to say anything to your father?"

Chris considered the offer. "No. He'd just be upset. He never wanted any of this for me."

"Well, neither did I. Maybe he should have come to me; we could have worked something out."

"Mr. Lambert, I am perfectly happy with my life. I don't need big, strong men trying to orchestrate it for me." Chris replied tartly.

"I know Chris. I know." Adam smiled softly and looked down at Morgana. "Well, let's go home sweetie! Say goodbye to Auntie Chris!" The baby was none too mobile, so Chris wasn't surprised that she didn't move.

"Anything mermaid-y on her?" Chris asked.

"No, though I think she rather enjoys baths. We'll just have to wait and see." Adam smiled and could not offer a handshake or hug with his full arms. "Goodbye, Chris."

"Goodbye, Adam." Chris pecked him on the cheek. "Fair winds to you." With that, Adam turned and boarded the freighter.

By the time Chris returned to the _Pearl_, night had fallen. The crew had been given one night shore leave, and the next morning they were to continue sailing for Madagascar. Chris found Jack in their cabin and in her absence he had moved her chest, her screen, her mirror, and her desk into his cabin. "Thanks, Jack, I was going to get Ragetti to help me with that." Chris said, closing the door behind her.

"Oh aye, like Ragetti will be doin' anything this voyage except staying in his hammock with Sarah. Which reminds me, we should kick them into your cabin." Chris laughed and kissed her husband. She also saw that Loki was lounging on one of the shelves, chewing an apple. She turned and pulled her damask bandana from her hair as Jack said, "I was unsure whether or not I should move them up here, honestly."

"Why is that?" Chris asked, combing through her hair with her fingers and turning back to her husband.

"Adam." He said plainly. "I wasn't sure whether or not ye'd be goin' with him." Chris gave Jack a reprimanding look. "I know, I know. I just had this feeling ye two were more than friends way back when."

Chris sighed. "We both thought we would marry each other when we grew up. That was all." She reached forward, placing her hands upon Jack's shoulders. "Besides, I'm married to you. You are the only man that will ever share my bed." She sealed this statement with a kiss.

Jack grinned at her. "Even if others might have pretty little mystical babies?"

Chris grinned. "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't abandon you for a man with children." She laughed.

"Well in that case," Jack put his arms about Chris' waist and spun her around, laying her on their bed. "Let's make some!"

oOo

She was drowned in suicide  
Faithless lover cast aside  
This is how she came to be  
Lorelei of the sea  
Hopes destroyed, she wanted to find  
Certain death peace of mind  
Now you wonder who is she  
Lorelei of the sea  
Many tales I've been told of sailors having died  
After seeing a mermaid known  
As Lorelei  
Faithless lover that is me  
And she siren of the sea  
So next time that the seagulls fly  
Don't you cry sweet Lorelei

Seagulls fly  
When mermaids cry  
Those tears won't dry  
For Lorelei

The guilt is mine I was untrue  
The question is what am I to do  
All I know is I got to try  
Try to find sweet Lorelei  
Make amends for what's been done  
'cause I believe that she's the one  
And I will go where seagulls fly  
Try to find sweet Lorelei

Seagulls fly  
When mermaids cry  
Those tears won't dry  
For Lorelei

There she is I hear her cry  
She's asking me if I will die  
There ain't nothing I won't do  
For you Lorelei

Seagulls fly  
When mermaids cry  
Those tears won't dry  
For Lorelei


	16. A Trade of the Flesh &

**Chapter Sixteen  
A Trade of the Flesh**

Upon arrival at Madagascar, the _Black Pearl_ anchored at the beach they had left earlier that year, finding remnants of their huts still there. Supplies and pirates were tendered ashore, and a few days after arrival, Jack found Chris constructing a hut. "Helping out the landlubbers, eh?" Jack asked, coming to a stop behind her. He noticed Loki was observing from the frame of the roof.

"No, this is for us." Chris stated, turning to Jack and wiping perspiration from her forehead.

Jack cocked his head to the side. "Oh really? Already tired of the cabin?" He bounced his eyebrows up and down.

Chris rolled her eyes heavenward. "We'll be in there for a good chunk of the year, mate! Having a hut here – It's something we can't have on the _Pearl_."

"Oh fine, fine, stop begging." Jack said, sighing.

"I wasn't begging, and I will never beg you for anything, Captain Sparrow." Chris said, cocking her head to the side. "I don't remember the priest saying anythin' about me having to obey you, so get rickets."

Jack laughed. "Oh my delicate flower! Come here!" He grabbed her about the waist and picked her up, kissing her cheeks alternately.

"Let me down Sparrow –!"

"I don't remember the priest sayin' anything about me havin' to obey you!"

"Am I interrupting anyzing?" A familiar accented voice asked behind them. Jack, Chris, and Loki whipped their heads to see who it was and beheld Giles de Fayette walking towards them, a scarlet haired woman in tow, as well as Marc, Whit, and Katherine. He grinned widely as Jack plopped Chris into the sand and he bent into a bow. On his shoulder sat the hawk that he had last winter, and it and Loki gave each other the eye. Loki jumped down onto Chris' shoulder and Giles straightened up. "I heard ze _Pearl_ had anchored on Madagascar's shores once more, and I see zat ze two of you are much happier zan when I last left you."

"Giles, you ol' codger!" Jack walked forward and the two shook hands and thumped each other on the back. "Well, since I seem to be lackin' any wounds or bruises, I'd have to agree wit' ye on that, mate." Jack grinned and turned to the scarlet haired woman with Giles. Chris immediately knew that she was not a sailor by her fair complexion and the length of the dress she wore. But then again, Isabella hadn't looked a sailor either… "Who is this fine lady?"

"My wife, Yolande de Fayette." Giles replied, presenting the woman. She bobbed in a slight curtsy and Giles took her hand. "She and my daughters 'ave been begging me to bring zem here, and so, I gave in." He smiled. "_Cherie_, zis is Captain Jacques Sparrow and his quartermaster Chris."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance." Yolande said, smiling. Her accent was more delicate than her husband's. "Giles has spoken nuzsing but good of you both since last winter. I sank se both of you for keeping him company here."

"Our pleasure, madam." Jack said, turning on the charm and pulling the corners of his lips upward. "Come, let us sit, drink, talk!" Jack led the pirates to the newly dug fire pit and the shady canopy that had been strung near it. Once all were seated, drinks were poured, and Marc, Whit, and Katherine left them for their previous acquaintances from the _Black Pearl_, Jack asked, "So how has the year been treating you, Giles?"

Giles took a drink of rum and sighed in appreciation. Yolande had deferred for some wine. "Zings 'ave been better, I'll not lie." The French captain shrugged. "Chesed decided to terrorize ze Mediterranean, so zings 'ave not been as easy as before. And zen Marak left us to join ze crew of ze _Blanco Muerto_," He looked upon Chris as he said this; she had her nose in her mug of rum as he continued. "And he took wiz him a good chunk of some of my finest men. It pains me to know zat zeir loyalty was to him and not I." Yolande took her husband's hand and squeezed it as he continued. "But we shall overcome and prosper, it is ze way of ze de Fayettes!" Giles took another draught of rum. "And you?"

"We've done a sight better than you, mate. You might want to try out the Caribbean sometime. Sun, fun, and of course, enough civilization to make sure your Yolande is taken care of." Jack smiled at the woman and she blushed. "And not too long ago, Chris and I were joined in marriage."

"_Joie de vivre_!" Yolande exclaimed, smiling. Her husband too was grinning widely.

"I 'ad a feeling when we last parted zat zeir was more to you two zan met ze eye." Giles chuckled. "Good for boz of you!"

The two couples continued visiting for the next half hour or so before Giles excused himself and his wife with the reason that they had to return to their daughters, who were waiting back at their camp. Jack shouted after Giles, "We should dine together this week!"

"Ah, it may be sooner zan you zink, Jacques! _Au revoir_!" He waved before plunking his hat onto his head, offering his arm to his wife, and they continued off from the camp.

Chris shook her head and smiled. "Some day, I want to see him and me Uncle Harry in the same room with one another and see if either can out-French the other."

"Enough wistful thinking, love, let's get the roof on our hut." Jack said, offering his hand.

"_Our_ hut?" Chris asked, her eyes sparkling.

"Yes, just stow it before I change me mind." Jack, Chris, and Loki then spent the rest of the day layering leaves onto the roof and outfitting the inside with furniture from the captain's cabin of the _Black Pearl_. Just as the sun was setting and the pair were rolling out what would constitute as their bed, Chris heard faint music wafting in on the breeze. She sighed happily, reveling in the merry atmosphere that was imminent on the island of Madagascar, and then noticed the music was getting closer. When it was so loud there was no other explanation than the producers of it had to be at their camp, Chris and Jack exited their hut to find a small band consisting of a guitar, two flutes, and a set of drums operated by slapping the hand against the drumhead and, at the head of them, the surly pirate known as Bastian who Chris had boxed the previous winter for Ragetti's coat. Jack and Chris looked at each other as Bastian spoke.

"Oh, Christiana, my love! My heart! I have heard the rumor that you are married!" Bastian grabbed his breast. "Tell me it is not true! Tell me you have not given yourself to one so undeserving as Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"Mate, I will run you through –" Jack began, placing his hand upon the hilt of his sword. Chris stopped him with a gentle touch and looked to Bastian.

"We shall always have yesteryear and Christmas Eve, shall we not King Bastian?" She asked, smiling. She rather liked the fact that Jack was getting red in the face at her words.

"I suppose you are right, yes. But that does not mean I have to like it!" Bastian laughed and said, "My wedding present to you both is a night of entertainment!" He presented the band with a sweep of his arm and walked to Jack, offering his hand. "If I may beg your indulgence, may I have one dance with the lady before the night is out?"

Jack eyed the man skeptically. "That's up to her, mate. But as God as my witness, ye try anything, and I will run you through like a speared fish."

Bastian grinned. "Fair enough!" Bastian was not the only newcomer, Chris saw. While she and Jack had been inside their hut, Giles and Yolande had returned and brought with them barrels of drink, fresh fruit, and an entire roasted boar, still smoking. Jack and Chris were ushered over to the fire pit where all had been set up and Giles opened his arms. "Jacques! Chris! Let us celebrate your marriage in style! We have food, drink, and good friends!" Giles grabbed one rough wooden mug from a basket full of them, crossed to a barrel of drink, and drew the liquor out of it. "To Christiana and Captain Jacques Sparrow! May peace, prosperity, love, and 'appiness follow you all your days! Friends, drink with me to zem!" Drinks were pulled and passed until all held a mug of drink in their hands, and the music stopped for the moment. "To ze Sparrows! _Bonne chance et meilleurs voeux_!" He raised his glass and all drank before the music was stirred up once more.

As slices of roast boar were cut and food was taken, Giles called, "Jacques! Chris! Let me introduce you to my daughters." He pulled forward two young women that were a few years younger than Chris. Both had rich and lustrous dark locks and umber eyes that glittered like any jewel. "Zese are my daughters Brigitte and Angelique!" Both girls swept curtsies and rose.

"Ah, ladies, upon the sight of you, I regret my current marital state." Jack sighed, winking at Chris. "Damned ball and chain!"

Chris slightly rolled her eyes and turned away. "Oh Bastian…" She was quickly pulled back to Jack and she grinned.

As the evening progressed, much alcohol was drunk, food was eaten, and dances were had. Pintel found the courage to ask both Brigitte and Angelique to dance, but Giles affixed an eye of warning upon the pirate and he was nothing but a gentleman. Throughout the night Chris not only danced with her husband, but obliged Bastian with a dance, as well as Giles, Cotton, Pintel, and Gibbs. When the stars hung high in the sky, Yolande shooed the pirate captain and his quartermaster to their hut. "You're married now! You surely do not want to spend your entire evening wiz us!" And so the two retired. Several minutes after they entered their huts, several members of the _Black Pearl_ and _Tout de Suite_'s crew as well as Bastian snuck up to the outside of the hut, the sound of their movements masked by the music produced from the band. They all held something to make noise with, whether it was two sticks to bang together, a pot and a spoon, or a pistol. With a signal from Giles, the music was cut and pistols were fired, pots were banged, and sticks were clacked.

From inside was the sound of two startled people possibly colliding, and then Jack skidded from the doorway, shirtless. He beheld all those before him, who stopped their noise-making and burst into laughter, and he shouted, "Curse ye all for breathing you cargo thieving gibbet danglers!"

"Chris has worn off on ye, I see!" Anamaria howled with laughter.

"Is it hot in there?" Athos guffawed. Ragetti fell over from laughing only to be helped up by his wife. Jack scowled at the pirates and retreated back into the hut. Once the laughter had abated and a few tears of jubilation were wiped from eyes, the pirates returned to their festivities and left the pair alone.

When light came in through the slits between the wood of the hut the next morning, Chris rolled sleepily into Jack so that her right arm was draped over his chest. He didn't stir except for wrinkling his nose once or twice. Chris smiled to herself and placed her ear upon his chest. She could hear his heart beating beneath his ribcage in a steady rhythm. Chris pulled her cheek away from Jack's chest to observe two scars that seemed to have been from bullet wounds upon the right side of his chest. She traced them gently with her fingers. Jack had never told her how they were made, and she wondered.

A slight groan issued from Jack's mouth. "What are ye doin', love?" He asked, his eyes still closed.

"Thinking." Chris replied. "You never told me how you got these."

"You're one of the few people who have ever seen them." Jack replied, his eyes still closed. He did not offer any explanation, and so Chris laid her head back upon his chest. He waited for a few moments before asking, "Is the sun risen?"

"Aye."

Jack groaned and sat up, bringing Chris with him. "Another glorious day at Madagascar, and another hangover to nurse."

Chris smiled. "It could be worse. We could be havin' a ship to tend to, couldn't we?"

Jack went to answer, but he was interrupted by cries from outside. "Brigitte? Angelique! _Où vous êtes ? Si vous pouvez m'entendre, l'appel à moi!_"

Chris arched an eyebrow and Jack turned to her for an explanation. "It sounds like someone's looking for Brigitte and Angelique." The two pirates pulled on their clothes and exited the hut to find Giles and an almost hysterical Yolande.

"Jacques, Angelique and Brigitte did not return to our camp last night. Have you seen zem?" Giles asked. He was holding onto his wife's hand by the waist and wrist as though to keep her from flying away.

Jack shook his head. "Have ye searched the _Pearl_?"

"_Oh mes bébés ! Où mes bébés sont_?" Yolande wailed.

"Gibbs checked ze ship for us, zey're not zere." While Yolande seemed inconsolable, it was apparent that her husband was doing the best not to fly into hysterics as well. He was pale and the ends of his luxurious mustache were trembling.

"Could they have wandered into the jungle and gotten lost?" Chris asked, pulling her damask bandana from the back pocket of her trousers and tying her hair back with it.

"Zey have a fear of ze wild; zey 'ave lived in the city all zeir lives." Giles said, gulping. "Zey would not know what to do."

Jack tapped his chin and said, "Alright, mate. We'll get together some search parties from our ship and yours, and we'll find them. Promise."

"_Oh Dieu, aider nous trouve mes bébés ! Je ne sais pas que je ferai si nous ne pouvons pas les trouver ! Nous aider, les protéger_ –" Yolande cried, and her husband put his arms about her.

One thing the search parties didn't need presently was a hysteric woman crying for her children and begging God for help. Chris pressed her lips together and offered her arm to Yolande. "Yolande, would you like to take a walk with me? Perhaps we will find traces of them in the trees."

Yolande looked to her husband and he said, "_Aller, _Yoyo_. Elle vous aidera, allez et nous regarderons._" Husband and wife kissed and Yolande took Chris' arm. Chris looked to Jack and the two women departed into the trees. On the way, Loki dropped down from the trees and onto Chris' shoulder, startling Yolande but doing no more harm.

Chris decided that French would probably be more comforting to Yolande at the present than English, and so she dredged up her French lessons from her childhood and asked, "How long have you and Giles been married?"

Yolande's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You speak French."

"Only a little." Chris smiled at the woman as they stepped over a felled log and continued following a very faint trail into the jungle. "Now, how long have you been married?"

"Twenty-five years. When we were married, neither of us had a franc to our name. And now we have all the money we could desire… But if we cannot find Brigitte and Angelique –" She inhaled sharply and fresh tears began welling in her eyes.

"We're going to find them, Yolande." Chris said firmly. "I have faith in my husband as sure as you have faith in yours. We are going to find – WHOAH!" The ground beneath the two women suddenly gave way and they fell into a pit that had been dug in the ground and then covered with a blanket ornamented with dirt and pieces of foliage and rocks. They fell and a huge plume of dirt spouted into the air and then settled as they landed. "Yolande, are you alright?" Chris asked. Her rear end was throbbing with dull pain, and she was sure she had accidentally elbowed Yolande in the face, but it never hurt to ask.

"Alright? Am I alright? _Mon Dieu, ce qu'une question_!" Yolande cried. Chris picked herself up and then helped Yolande to her feet. They found themselves in a pit dug about ten feet into the ground with walls too steep to make any effort at climbing easy. Chris blinked the dust from her eyes and a long way off heard a jingling sound. Her eyes moved to a board hanging above the pit that was bucking in an increasingly slowing rhythm. She wondered if that had been tied down by the blanket covering the hole, and now with the release of weight, it had set off the jingling.

"I don't have a good feeling about this, Yolande." Chris said. Loki had gotten entangled in some of the foliage below and freed himself with a jerk. He tumbled forward and Chris picked him up, inspecting the primate for any visible damage.

"Really?" Yolande's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "First my daughters are missing and then we fall into a pit; what exactly is there to feel good about in this situation?" The woman's French became so loud and shrill that Chris winced. Wow, she had a set of pipes on her…

"Just stay calm; we're not far from the beach, if we call for help –" A face suddenly poked over the edge of the pit and then vanished. There was a shout and a ladder made from tree limbs was lowered down.

"Come on out." Someone called in English. Chris thought immediately that some of the pirates from other camps must have set up the pit to capture boars or other wildlife on the island, and the jingles alarmed them that the trap had been sprung. Yolande climbed out first, and once she had cleared the lip of the pit, Chris followed.

Just as she reached the top, she heard, "_Non ! Le c'est un piège_ Chris!" but Yolande's warning that it was a trap came too late. Chris' head cleared the top, and immediately two men grabbed her beneath the arms and pulled her up. Loki shrieked and streaked from her shoulders and Chris saw that Yolande had been seized and a rough bag was pulled over her head. She had only a second to do something. She kicked her bare feet off the ladder and the momentum caused her to do a somersault in the men's hands. They weren't expecting that, so they let her go and she fell onto her still throbbing rear and almost pitched back into the pit.

As she saw the furry object that was Loki vanish into the trees, she balled up her right fist and punched the man nearest to her in the groin. He let out a whimper and crumpled and Chris pulled her elbow back to do the same to the other man's groin, but he grabbed her by the back of the throat and brought his other hand around. "Move again and I'll crush your windpipe!" He growled. Chris leered at the man, but simply widened her mouth and let drool run from her lips, dribble down her chin, and run onto the man's hands. He made a sound of disgust, but held on.

The man pulled Chris to her feet, and the man who she had punched recovered from his pain long enough to slap her quite hard. That sent flecks of spittle flying through the air and Chris grinned through the pain. "Is that the best ye can do, ye ale guzzling, flea bitten, skuttle hound?"

"Gag her!" Ordered the man holding her throat. A dirty piece of material was stuffed in between her lips (she managed to knick one of the fingers that placed it there with her front teeth) and tied around the back of her head. A bag was put over her head and her hands were tied. "Let's go." The order came, and she was prodded into a walk. Of course she hadn't thought to bring her weapons, and now it wouldn't help at all anyway. Chris just worked on chewing through her gag and continued walking.

Chris didn't know how long they walked, but she heard, "Step up," and soon she was blindly climbing stairs, helped every so often by hands or probing prods. The stairs ended and the ground leveled out and she heard, "We found these two in the trap. They look to be old mares, but I'm sure brothels will take anything they can get."

"Let's see them, then." Chris' gag was so close to breaking when the bag was taken off of her head and she found herself in a room where the floor and the walls were made of a dark gray stone. The window had no glass in it and opened to a cove below where two ships were anchored. It was late afternoon and the sun glinted brilliantly off the water. Sitting next to the window was a man whom Chris would have thought was trying to impersonate Jack and having a very bad time of it. He was tan, but compared to Jack, his build was quite slight and puny. His brown hair was braided tight against his scalp and he wore several necklaces around his neck. He was dressed in brown breeches, calf-high boots, and an open white shirt. He surveyed Yolande and Chris, rolling a lit cigar between his fingers. Chris spotted a knife in a scabbard at his waist.

"That one." He pointed to Yolande, who had hooded her eyes and pointed her nose in the air upon the bag being removed. Chris had to give her credit; after being hysteric earlier that day, the French woman was handling herself with outrageous aplomb. "She'll be good for a harem as a concubine, but not a wife." Yolande's eyes slit and she spat upon the floor. The man smiled and rose, sticking the cigar between his lips. He took a puff of it and walked over to Yolande, blowing the smoke in her face. "I could make things easy for you, rosebud." He laid the back of his hand upon her cheek. "Best be respectful."

"They were speaking French, she may not be able to understand you." One of the men who had brought them in said.

"I understand." Yolande said, her voice low and dangerous.

The man smiled and took another pull of his cigar. "Good." He turned to Chris.

"This one's a real Hell-cat with a sharp tongue. That's why we gagged her." At the moment, Chris was grinding her teeth forward and backward as inconspicuously as possible, trying to get through the last threads of the gag.

"Ah. I like my women with a little spitfire." The man grinned and took the cigar from his lips. The tobacco had stained his teeth and Chris saw brown edging the top of his teeth in his smile. His eyes fell upon Chris' damask bandana and his smile faltered. "Chris Thomas?" He asked.

The gag broke and Chris spat the gag from her mouth. The saying of her name threw her off guard. All she could think to do was spout and insult. "You black toothed, lice infested cur!"

The man smiled once more and placed the cigar back between his teeth. "Oh aye, it's Chris Thomas alright."

Giles, Ragetti, Anamaria, and Jack comprised their own little search party and figured on heading the same way as Yolande and Chris until they caught up with the two women, and then they could continue searching. As Jack stepped over a log, he saw movement in the trees. He looked up to find Loki hopping from branch to branch. He figured they must be getting close, so he thought nothing of it. He took a couple more steps and Loki let out a screech. All stopped and looked upwards at the small ape in alarm.

"It's Loki." Ragetti stated. "Where's poppet?"

"We must be getting close." Jack replied. He took another step forward and Loki screeched once more as Jack's foot sank into the ground. He took a knee as the rest of his leg followed and the blanket was whipped off of the pit. The rope with the board attached flung into the air and Giles' grabbed Jack before he pitched forward into the pit. Loki let out another shriek and dropped down from the trees before loping over to Jack's side. He looked in the pit and shrieked once more. Far away, there was a jingling noise.

"What's this all about?" Anamaria asked, surveying the pit. Loki shrieked once more.

Giles looked at Jack. "Do you zink zat ze reason Loki is here is because Yolande and Chris fell?"

"But then where are they?" Jack asked. There was a shout from somewhere far off. Jack looked at his friends. "I think we should take cover for a few minutes and see if anyone comes." Jack had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The times before when he'd found Loki alone didn't pan out too well for himself or Chris. He dreaded what else might have happened. He and his four friends retreated into the bushes and waited. Sure enough, four men soon came from further into the jungle and, upon arrival at the pit, looked down into it.

"Nothing." One of them stated. "What could have set off the trap and gotten away?"

"Some of the boars can be tricky." Another man sighed. "Great, this is nothing but a waste of our time. We already got those two fresh strumpets and now those other ones; we should be getting them ready for the voyage tomorrow."

"Alright, let's get this set up again and get back." The men pulled the blanket back across the pit after lowering the board beneath it. With a sprinkling of dirt and some branches and leaves from near trees they departed.

"Ragetti, Anamaria, follow them and stay out of sight." Jack whispered. "Mark the trail so we can follow. Giles and I will go get reinforcements."

"What if zey are not speaking of our wives and my daughters?" Giles whispered. "Zey could be anybody!"

"Mate, while I am a pirate, I don't feel spectacularly good about people who trap other people in deep pits in the ground. Even if they aren't, we should still do our best to free them." Giles nodded and Jack looked to his two sailors. "Wait until we get there and stay out of sight." Anamaria smiled and beckoned Ragetti to follow her with a nod. Loki climbed up onto Jack's shoulder and as he and Giles turned to head back to the beach, the captain of the _Black Pearl_ said, "I don't know about you, Giles, but I don't feel quite settled with people being captured on our winter island."

"It does not sit well wiz me eizer, Jacques." Giles replied.

Jack grinned. "I think we should get some of the other kings involved in this."

Back in the building of gray stone, Chris still stood before the man with braided hair, as did Yolande. He walked around Chris, inspecting her. "Ye've filled out well. _Very_well."

"If yer eyes don't stop movin', I will gouge them out!" Chris threatened. She saw a locked chest by the man's chair, and next to that on a small table a ring of keys and a pistol. The man raised his hand to stop his men from doing anything to her.

"Chris, it's me, Robert." He said, coming to a rest before her. He opened his arms. "Don't ye remember me?"

Chris mouth opened. Underneath the tan and the braided hair, it was indeed Robert Dulligan, the one-time boy who had taught her much of what she knew about sailing. "What are you doing here?" She stuttered. After her encounter with Adam, she wasn't about to go trusting any other friend from her past too soon, but a spark of hope awakened in her.

"There's great profit to be made in trading women to the sheiks and sultans of Araby." Robert shrugged and sat down, rolling his cigar between his fingers once more. "Especially those who are still maidens like the two we plucked last night."

"Brigitte? Angelique?" Yolande asked, her haughty disposition falling for only a moment.

"Dark haired and beautiful eyed? Yes, I believe those are their names." Robert responded, his eyes flicking to Yolande for but a moment before returning to Chris. "Friends of yours?"

"They're her daughters. We were looking for them when we fell into the trap." Chris replied. For a moment she hoped Robert would let them go, but if he did, what was to stop him from doing this to any other woman upon Madagascar?

"Well, now mother and daughters will be reunited." Robert smiled and took a pull of his cigar. Yolande's eyes threw daggers at him. "But what to do with you, hmm?" Smoke wafted from his mouth and nostrils. "Are you yet a maiden, Chris? If I remember correctly, you were when we last parted."

Lord, what was it with men thinking with the organ between their legs rather than the one inside their skulls? "I'm married." Chris replied tartly.

"Ah. Pity." Robert rose again. "Take them both into the cells. Make sure they're fed and watered, they have a long journey ahead of them."

Chris felt her bound hands grasped and she said, "Is that it, Robert? Is that what you're going to do to an old friend? We were best of mates, you and me."

Robert sighed and fixed Chris with a disdainful look. "Oh, I don't _care_. That was forever ago, and friendship does not pay the bills, Chris." Robert took another pull on his cigar and shook the ash to the floor as Yolande and Chris were taken from the room. "Enjoy your accommodations!"

Chris felt stunned as she was hauled down stairs rimming the outside of a dwelling that seemed to be carved into a large amount of grey stone that bordered the shore. She and Yolande were taken down to where metal cells had been affixed in the rock and found Brigitte and Angelique inside. The two married women were thrown in beside them, and Yolanda exclaimed, "_Merci Dieu, remercier le grand et clément Dieu_!" and covered her daughters with kisses.

"We're fine, mother." Angelique insisted.

"They haven't done anything to us." Brigitte continued.

"Hush, I never thought I would see either of you again!" Yolande wept.

Chris sank against one of the walls and sighed, thinking back onto the previous exchange she and Robert had just gone through. He had changed so much. He had once been a carefree sailor lad, prone to fits of hysterical fun and pranks. And now… Chris' heart ached. Why was it that most of her old friends had been worn down and changed by time and yet she stayed the same? Was there anything such as loyalty anymore? She sighed and hit her head against the wall absentmindedly. She and Robert had enjoyed such fun aboard the _Branwyn_ when they were younger. What had happened to him?

"Avast! Any scoundrels that dare cross me will surely have a sword meet their gullet!" Bastian cried out as he and the rather larger retinue of pirates filtered through the jungle.

Jack rolled his eyes. "I don't know if I mentioned, Bastian, but we're tryin' to be discreet."

"I don't know if you noticed, Sparrow, but there are at least fifty of us." Bastian replied with a grin. It wasn't hard to recruit a good deal of pirates to go and eradicate whoever was placing traps from Madagascar. Madagascar was a pirate haven and one of the only places in the world that accepted all without prejudice. Any good pirate worth their salt would be damned before the peace of their winter island was disturbed.

"Just keep walking." Jack grumbled. "And stop being an idiot."

Bastian's grinned widened. "So, Sparrow, would your marriage perhaps be… falling on hard times?"

"Bastian, I'm warning ye –"

"Boz of you be quiet!" Giles snapped. The two fell silent. They were following piles of rocks that Anamaria and Ragetti had left behind them. Slowly but surely, they were advancing through the trees and to whatever lay ahead.

Time seemed to crawl in the cells. A single man was stationed by the doors as guard. After Yolande had put her arms around the girls, all fell silent. The French women seemed to have no faith in any type of escape, but Chris' brain was furiously trying to plot an escape plan. After she had come up with a rudimentary plan, she looked to the guard. "Hey! Sentry bloke!" The man turned to look at Chris and she smiled before saying one of the worst insults she could have ever wanted to give to someone, except she said it in French. "_J'ai violé votre mère avec une épingle assurant_." Yolande, Brigitte, and Angelique's eyes widened in horror as Chris added the cherry on top. "_Elle l'a aimé_."

The guard frowned. "Shut up." He grunted, and then turned his back to Chris.

Her grin even wider, Chris turned to her fellow prisoners and said, "I think he does not know French." Yolande's face split into a grin as she realized exactly why Chris said such a thing. "I think we can plan without being overheard."

"Brilliant!" Brigitte exclaimed, her face also cracking open into a smile.

"I have a plan." Chris quickly explained what she had cooked up to the three French women, ignoring any gasps or looks of dismay. "…I know that you may not have done anything like this before, but if we want to get out of here – I suggest we do it."

Angelique looked to her mother. "What do you think?"

"This may entail some things we usually wouldn't do, my dears, but would you prefer to be slaves or not?" Yolande asked.

"I'd die before I'd become a slave." Brigitte said with shocking ferocity in her voice.

"Sometimes certain evils are necessary for the greater good." Angelique added.

Yolande smiled at her daughters. "My brave girls."

Chris nodded and stood. "Alright. I suggest we start before the sun goes down so that we can make our getaway in the dark." She nodded to the other women and crossed back to the bars of the cell, reverting to English. "Hey mate, aren't we going to get anything to eat?"

The guard didn't look at her. "The Arabs like their women skinny."

Chris rolled her eyes. "I was told by Robert that he and I were to have a private dinner. Since we're old mates and everything. Plus, I guess he wanted to sample my wares before I'm shipped out."

The guard shifted his weight and turned around, looking to the female pirate. "He said that?"

Chris shrugged. "Aye. Fine with me, I guess. We used to be real close, so it's just like picking up where we left off."

The guard hesitated. "I'll be right back." With that, he scurried to the right and up the stairs leading to the dwelling.

Chris turned to the others. "Alright. Now, I'll be gone as long as it takes, but when I return, I need to have the guard good and distracted. I'll give you a whistle," Chris demonstrated the distinct whistle she would use and continued. "Then I need all three of ye to attract his attention and hold it. Aye?"

"Yes." Brigitte responded. She, her sister, and her mother clutched onto each other as they waited.

The guard returned and unlocked the cell. "Mr. Dulligan will see you now." He said breathlessly. Chris did not use any resistance as the guard grabbed her arm, locked the cell, and led her up the stairs. The sun was beginning to dip downward in the sky – Chris figured she had an hour, maybe less to do what she needed to and get herself and the other women out of there.

"Mr. Dulligan, the girl." The guard announced as he thrust Chris into the same stone room as before. On the climb to said room, Chris had unbuttoned the two top buttons on her shirt and inched her trousers down so that her bellybutton and the top of her pelvis were exposed. She was fairly certain that if Jack saw her like this she would never hear the end of it.

Robert had removed his shirt, and Chris saw that he sported a tattoo about his collar bone. He still wore the necklaces. "Thank you, Creed." He said to the guard. The guard nodded and exited. Robert was sitting in his chair and he watched as Chris pulled the damask bandana from her hair. She had never in her life tried to display herself as alluring or desirable. She hoped she was doing a good job. "What's this I hear about sampling your wares?" The man asked, a curious expression upon his face.

"Well, with everything that happened so fast earlier, we never did get to catch up, Robert." Chris did her best to purr. "Besides, if I'm to be sent to Arabia to be kept as a concubine, I think I would like to savor one last touch of a civilized man."

Robert watched her, as though he was weighing the pros and cons of what she was suggesting. His eyes flicked up and down her body. He sat forward and picked up an uncorked bottle of drink. "Care for some wine, Chris?" He asked, pouring her a measure into a mug next to the bottle.

"Please." Chris accepted the mug and watched as he poured himself a measure of alcohol. He took it, but did not drink. Chris noticed that. She raised the wine to her lips and pretended to swallow. "A fine vintage." Robert nodded, his eyes still upon her. "It's good to see that you've prospered off the _Branwyn_, Robert." Chris unbuttoned the next button down on her shirt. Pretty soon she would be showing a ridiculous amount of cleavage.

"Anyone can prosper if they have the right taste for it." Robert replied, holding his fingers to his lips. Chris pretended to take another sip. "And you?"

"Ah, what do ye care for me past?" Chris asked. "What's more pressing now is my present, don't you think?" She batted her eyes, hoping she didn't look a fool.

"You have certainly changed since the _Branwyn_." Robert licked his lips. "You've matured into a very shapely woman. _Very_ shapely." He smiled softly.

"Yes, well…" Chris pretended to drain the rest of her wine, causing some of it to spill onto her white shirt. She began giggling profusely. "Oh, look what I've done? Wine splotches, everywhere." She sat her mug down and brushed at the spots with her fingertips.

"Allow me." Robert rose, sitting his untouched wine down, and crossed to Chris. She weaved back and forth as his fingertips touched her where there was no trace of wine. His brown eyes looked into hers quickly before he reached for the next button down on her shirt. She suddenly lurched forward, bumping into him.

"Oh, I'm so clumsy…" She put the back of her hand to her forehead. "Me head is spinning." She placed her hands upon his shoulders and guided him back to his seat, where she swung her legs onto his lap and leaned against him. "Remember how close we used to be, Robert? How we used to spend afternoons on end in the crow's nest?" Robert nodded. Chris placed the fingers of her left hand on the side of his throat. "Ye've always been so handsome." She leaned forward, her lips hovering over his mouth. His lips opened to receive the impending kiss, but then too late he felt where Chris' other hand was. She snatched the knife from the sheath at his waist and held the blade to his throat.

"Chris –"

"Shut up. You call for help and I will slit your throat." Chris hissed, dropping the giggling and the foolishness. "They may get me, but I'm sure they won't be able to help you." Her eyes flicked to the pistol on the table next to the chest, and the keys. "What are those keys to?" She asked, grabbing the pistol with her left hand and training the barrel upon his temple.

His breathing became erratic. "That chest. It holds all our savings, everything." He gulped. "Chris, what are you –"

"Which one of the ships in the cove has the least amount of crew aboard?" Chris asked.

"The schooner, she's empty. The brigantine is the one that we were supposed to sail with tomorrow."

"Good." Chris climbed off of Robert, keeping the pistol trained on him and the knife brandished. "Open the chest." Robert slowly grabbed the keys and shoved one of them in the lock of the chest. He turned it and opened it. Chris then saw several pouches of coin inside. "Give me them."

Robert stared. "Chris, if I lose you, that's fine. But if I lose all of this, they'll kill me."

Chris stared hard at Robert. "I don't care." She said coldly.

Robert's mouth opened. "Chris – Chris! You said it yourself, we was mates, you and I."

"And then you did this, Robert. This is unspeakable." Chris spat the words like poison. "How many girls have you sent to their fate to be objects of desire and play for men? How many?" Robert had no answer. "That's what I thought. Now give me them!" Robert handed the pouches to her slowly, and she strung them upon her arms. As he picked up the last pouch, Robert looked behind his shoulder at her and then back to the pouch before suddenly whipping around and trying to clobber Chris with it.

She jerked back at the last moment; the pouch went flying and hit the wall, bursting open and littering coins all over. Chris lunged forward and pinned Robert to the wall with her weight and held the pistol against his head. "We were mates, Robert." She said. "But you've changed, and now you're not me mate at all." Her expression became one of sorrow. "If I never see you again, I won't care. I don't care. I don't know what happened to make you this way. The Robert I knew wasn't like this. But whatever did happen to you, I just don't care." She meant it. She hadn't given a second thought to the situation of Robert Dulligan for years, and now with his attempt to take not only herself but Yolande, Angelique, and Brigitte away from their family and Chris her husband, she was not feeling spectacularly forgiving.

"What are you going to do, Chris?" Robert asked, his eyes flitting to the hand that held the pistol. "Shoot me?"

Chris scowled. "No." With that, she brought the butt of the pistol crashing down onto Robert's head. He cried out, but Chris bludgeoned him twice more and he folded in two and dropped to the floor. Chris inhaled sharply to try and calm herself and then exited. The sun was setting.

As she descended the stairs towards the cell, she let out her whistle when she surmised she was within range for Yolande and the girls to hear, and then she whistled once more just before she came around the rock facing to the cells. She found that she needn't have done the second time.

"Oh muzzer, my bodice is so tight in ze chest –" Angelique said.

"Well open it up, _cherie_, let your chest breathe!" Yolande replied.

"I zink I have a bruise upon my zigh, muzzer. Do you see anyzing?" Brigitte asked. Chris made a mental note to never, _ever_ relay what the de Fayette women had just done to Giles and she whipped around the rock facing, the pistol raised and knife out. Sure enough, the guard was pressed up against the bars as much as he could be without actually being considered inside the cell. Chris saw flashes of skin as she quickly walked up to the back of the guard and quickly pressed her knife to his throat and brought her pistol to his head. He moaned in alarm.

"Unlock the door unless you want your brains blown over these pretty young lasses." Chris said. "And if ye make a noise, I'll blow your brains out anyway and pick the key off your corpse!" The man reached down to the key ring about his belt and slid the key into the lock. With a click, the door opened and the de Fayette women were free. Upon their release, Chris bashed the man's head until he was unconscious, much like she did with Robert. With the help of Brigitte, they drug the man's body into the cell, locked the door, and tossed the keys into the bushes.

The four women skirted the rock facing to the cove. After ducking in the bushes, Chris surveyed the brigantine and the schooner. The schooner appeared deserted and those on the brigantine seemed preoccupied with swabbing the decks. "Alright ladies. Here's what we'll do. One by one, we'll board the schooner by the gangplank." She nodded at the gangplank resting in the sand. "When ye get on, duck down behind the bulkhead so those on the brigantine can't see ye. Yolande, ye'll go first, followed by yer daughters, then me. After I get on, I'll get the ship movin' –"

"Chris, how are we even supposed to be able to sail zat ship?" Yolande asked. "Zere are only four of us!"

"Don't worry Yolande." Chris eyes bounced to the open water and found several rocks jutting from the water's surface. She grinned. "I have a plan. But for now, we have to get on the schooner. Yolande, on my signal?" The woman nodded and Chris looked to the brigantine and checked for any others who might see them. Seeing none, she flicked her hand and Yolande shot from the bushes, up the gangplank, and behind the cover of the bulkhead. Angelique followed, and then Brigitte, before Chris finally boarded. She let the pouches of coin hit the deck and she sighed with relief.

Ducking behind the bulkhead, Chris whispered, "Alright. I'm assumin' that the cannon below are already loaded. Have any of ye ever fired a cannon?" Unsurprisingly, none of the women responded. "Alright. This is what I need ye to do." Chris looked at the brigantine broadside across from them. "Open the gun ports and I just need ye to fire all of the cannon facing the brigantine. Can ye do that?" Chris' plan wasn't only to make off with the schooner, but destroy every last hope that Robert and his men could have of getting off of Madagascar any time soon.

"How do we fire zem?" Yolande asked.

"Light the fuses." Chris replied. "Lord, Yolande, your husband is a pirate!" Yolande's cheeks flushed at this and the other woman said, "I'm sorry. Just go below, find some flint, and fire them, alright?"

"What are you going to do?" Brigitte asked.

Chris grinned. "Not to worry. Just make sure you get back to the deck as soon as ye've fired the guns, alright?" They nodded and headed below. Chris, in the meantime, found a hatchet slung over the bulkhead and with it, she cut the lines to the anchors. The splash they created as they hit the water alerted those on the brigantine that someone was aboard the schooner. As they looked, Chris saluted them and to her satisfaction, she felt the first of the cannon below fired, slamming right into the belly of the brigantine. Attention was deflected from her at that, and she climbed into the rigging and let the sails out fully so that they would catch every breath of wind.

The schooner slowly lurched forth in the water as the cannon continued to fire, several cannon balls hitting precariously close to the water line on the brigantine. Chris went to the wheel and as the schooner slipped away, she witnessed the brigantine begin to favor the side facing them as water poured in the holes the schooner's cannon made. As they pulled into open water, she looked back and saw the brigantine do a veritable flop into the water. The sails drug below and men scrambled to cling to what wreckage they could. Grinning, Chris pointed the schooner towards the rocks out in the harbor.

She should have known something was afoot when Yolande and her daughters didn't return to the deck and the cannon had fallen silent, but she was busy calculating her next move. The schooner was moving along at a very good pace, she had to time this just right –

"Hold it right there." Robert had suddenly emerged from the forecastle, and with him were at least a dozen men. Two of them were holding each of the de Fayette women. Chris' jaw dropped and the stared. Robert smiled. "Thank ye for the bump on my head, Chris. Allow me to repay you in kind on our voyage to Araby." Chris looked over Robert's shoulders and saw the rocks were looming closer. Robert must have been faking unconsciousness! That was the only thing Chris could surmise, and while she was freeing the de Fayette's, he must have boarded the schooner, figuring that was the ship she was headed for. Her hands tightened on the hatchet at her side. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Chris. Not unless you want your friends' blood on your hands." Indeed, Chris saw metal glinting at the throats of the three women.

"Robert…" Chris began, "Look behind you." He did so, and Chris saw his shoulders slacken.

"Rocks! Take in sail, lower the anchor!" He commanded.

"What about –" One of his men questioned.

Robert roared, "Forget the trollops, do as I say!" The schooner seemed to pick up speed with each passing second. "Forget the sails, lower the anchors!"

His men scattered to the capstan and one yelled in dismay, "They've been cut!"

"The wheel –!" Robert shrieked, turning just as Chris raised the hatchet to cut the line at the bottom of the wheel. The line controlled the rudder. Once it went slack, the ship would aim straight and true. Robert's mouth opened as Chris looked at him, a maniacal glint in her eye. "You'll kill us all!"

Chris grinned. She wondered if this was what Jack felt when one of his daft plans worked. "I don't care." She said simply, and then she chopped the line.

Jack and the others had met up with Ragetti and Anamaria right outside what appeared to be a kind of fortress carved into a great expanse of dark rock near the coast. There was some discussion as to how they would carry this out when Bastian blurted, "Oh to Hell with it! Let's just storm them!" Jack had to say it was the first thing that had come out of the man's mouth that he agreed with. So, pistols bared, swords brandished, and war cries issuing from their throats, the pirates stormed the fortress only to find it devoid of life. As Jack burst into a room with an empty chest, chair, and an opened bottle of wine, he saw through the glassless window that a brigantine had capsized in the cove below, and he was able to witness the sight of a schooner ramming right into a crop of rocks sitting out in the water. The bow splintered and the masts fell, and he saw several shapes abandoning ship. He wondered just what the bloody Hell had happened here.

With the pirates, he marched to the cove, finding along the way an unconscious man in a man-made cell, and a few of the survivors of the brigantine. The survivors gave one look at the pirates and high-tailed it into the surrounding trees. Bastian barked a few orders and his men went after them. As they filtered to the cove's beach, three persons were just pulling themselves ashore from the water. Each were weighed down by their wet dresses, but Giles cried, "_Remercier Dieu_!" and ran to embrace his wife and daughters just as the sun winked underneath the horizon.

Jack grinned to see his friend once more in the company of his family, but the corners of his mouth soon turned down. The de Fayette women were present and that was all well and good, but where was Chris? He soon got his answer as he saw something white swimming towards shore. He slogged into the water as the white drew closer. The white turned out to be Chris' shirt, which was plastered to her body as she came out of the sea. She seemed genuinely surprised to see Jack. "What are you doing here?" She asked as she came to a depth she could stand in.

"What am _I_ doing here?" Jack asked. "I'm supposed to be rescuing you! What are _you_ doing not locked up or bound?"

Chris smiled and splashed to her husband. "I'm doing your job for you." She leaned in to give her husband a kiss, but a call from shore interrupted them.

"Chris, my sweet!" Bastian called. "If you need anyone to dry you off –"

"Stow it, Bastian!" Chris replied, pointing at the pirate king. He laughed loudly and Chris turned her attention back to her husband.

"You know, I really do hate that ponce." Jack said under his breath. Chris grinned and finally obliged her husband with a kiss.

Since it was a bit late to be tramping through the jungle, the pirates decided to make camp on the beach of the cove. Some who had run into the jungle had been apprehended and their fate was left up to Giles. No one other than the four women had swum ashore after Chris had emerged from the water. And since all four women possessed soggy clothes, a search for something dry for them to wear yielded nothing but white chemises. After some very vehement threats to anyone staring too long at the women in the undergarments from not only Chris but Giles, a fire was made and the stores of those at the fortress were broken into for dinner. Jack found Chris sitting near the surf as the night progressed.

He sat next to her and surveyed the chemise she wore. "Ye know, this isn't that bad of a look for ye, Chris." Chris rolled her head to look at him. She raised her eyebrows and he chuckled. "Only jokin', only jokin'." They watched the surf crash upon the sand for a few moments and Jack asked, "So what happened here?"

"They were orchestrating the selling of women to sheiks and others in Arabia." Chris stated simply. "I'm glad it seems we put them out of business."

Jack nodded sincerely. "Aye."

Chris seemed to struggle with whether or not to speak again. She decided to in the end. "Their leader – Well, I'm not sure if he really was their leader, but –" She sighed. "A man in charge, he was me old mate Robert from back when I sailed on the _Branwyn_." Jack looked to Chris as she continued. "He changed so much. He was the one who taught me a good chunk of me sailing education. Taught me how to talk like someone who wasn't a fop," Jack laughed, "And he used to love having fun. Lord, I remember there was hardly a week that went by that we didn't pull a prank on Torin Malloy." Chris sighed, staring off into the distance as she remembered. "And he changed so much. So much. Why is it that all my old friends change?" She looked to her husband. "I seem to be the only constant, and yet James, Adam, Robert, they all have changed, and not for the better."

Jack shrugged. "I can't give ye an answer love. But I understand. I once had a friend, his name was Cutler Beckett. He's from back when I sailed for the East India Trading Company." Jack sighed. "'e wanted me to move a shipment of slaves. I said no and freed 'em. 'e's the one who gave me this." Jack pulled up his right sleeve, revealing his familiar pirate brand. "I don't know how it happens, love. But we can't do anythin' for it except continue on with our lives." Chris leaned into her husband's shoulder at this and he placed his hand upon her shoulder. "Where is Robert now?" He asked hesitantly.

"He was on the schooner when I rammed it into the rocks." The couple sat in silence for a few moments. Jack shrugged Chris off of him and stood after a lengthy silence. "Apparently they had some divine rum in their stores. Care to join me in sampling?" Jack offered his hand and Chris took it. Together, they left the shore and headed back to the warmth of the fire and their friends.

oOo

I try to make it through my life  
In my way,  
There's you  
I try to make it through these lies  
And that's all I do

Just don't deny it  
Don't try to fight this  
And deal with it,  
It's just part of it

If you were dead or still alive,  
I don't care, I don't care,  
Just go and leave this all behind  
Cuz I swear  
I don't care

I tried to make you see my side  
Always tried to stay in line  
But your eyes see right through  
That's all they do

I'm getting buried in this place  
I got no room  
You're in my face  
Don't say anything, just go away

If you were dead or still alive,  
I don't care, I don't care  
Just go and leave this all behind  
Cuz I swear  
I don't care

I'm changing everything  
But you won't be there for me

I'm changing everything  
But you won't be there for me

If you were dead or still alive,  
I don't care, I don't care  
Just go and leave this all behind  
Cuz I swear  
I don't care

If you were dead or still alive,  
I don't care, I don't care  
Just go and leave this all behind  
Cuz I swear  
I don't care

At all…


	17. Chesed's Influence !

**Chapter Seventeen  
Chesed's Influence**

Christmas came and went with Jack's midnight mass. Friendships were made and spirits were drunk as time progressed on the island of Madagascar. Bastian and Jack eventually made a friendship, even if it was wholly centered on trying to outdo the other when Chris was around. As for the pirate captain and quartermaster, they were able to live like they would if they had been any other married couple for a few months. All too soon, the months were gone, and spring came. The _Black Pearl_ was put on rollers, rolled on the beach, caulked, scraped free of barnacles, and tended to.

Giles de Fayette decided that he was tired of his usual tramping grounds in the Mediterranean and the west coast of Africa, so after some very long discussions with his wife, daughters, and crew, Giles decided that he was going to move his pirating operations to Caribbean. There were, after all, some French colonies there, so Giles would still have French compatriots nearby and English ships to raid. And so in March, the _Tout de Suite_ and _Black Pearl_ sailed from Madagascar together.

In less than a month, the _Black Pearl_ had returned to the Caribbean with the _Tout de Suite_ in tow. When the two ships rounded Hispaniola and Cuba, both let their sails grow slack, for they would part ways. Haiti was dominantly French in origin, so Giles decided to head to Petit Goave and meet the governor of the port as well as set his wife and daughters up in a home there. The _Black Pearl_ was continuing onto Tortuga to resupply, get the latest news on the happenings in the Caribbean, and for Sarah to return to her job. It was also found about two weeks out from Madagascar that Sarah was pregnant and so Ragetti (and Gibbs because of his superstitions) wanted her to be on land as soon as possible.

As the ships slowed, each captain crossed to the railing on the side of the other ship. "_Au revoir_, Jacques!" Giles called, whipping his hat from his head. "_Bon voyage, mon ami_!"

Jack tipped his hat as well. "Take care, Giles! Don't tread on too many toes; I don't want to have to swoop in and save ye!" Giles laughed and bowed at the waist, Jack did the same, and the two ships parted ways.

The _Black Pearl_ sailed into Tortuga without incident, and after assigning the watch and giving shore leave to the rest, Chris, Jack, Ragetti, Sarah, and Pintel headed for the Faithful Bride. Upon arrival, Tom the barkeep said, "Ah, Sarah, good! Throw on an apron and start servin' drinks!" Sarah cast a look at her husband and headed behind the bar while the others settled themselves at a table.

When Sarah approached with their drinks, she also had a sealed envelope on the tray. She handed it to Jack after he received his rum. "Tom said that this arrived for you about two weeks ago, mate."

Jack did not accept it until he had taken a deep swig of his tankard and let out a sigh. "Thankee." He accepted the letter and broke the seal. Chris observed him with some interest; it wasn't every day that the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow had mail. As Jack's eyes traveled down the page, his expression changed from placid to one of alarm. Chris sat her tankard down as Jack finished and passed the letter to her. "It's from Liz." He said, shaking his head and taking another swig of rum. Chris began to read and found the letter contained neat handwriting.

_**Jack,  
I wish I was writing to you under better circumstances, but something terrible has happened and I believe you and the crew of the **__Black Pearl__** are the only ones I can trust. Let me explain.  
My father has returned to England to give his personal report on the state of Jamaica. He is expected to be gone six months, and when he left he granted Commodore Norrington, as ranking naval officer of Port Royal, the task of lieutenant governor. No more than two weeks after my father's ship departed, another ship entered the harbor named the **__Titan__**. Aboard was an admiral named Mathias Chesed, and he declared that he has been commissioned by His Majesty to hunt pirates. He had heard that Will had been involved with pirates previously, and so he wanted to question him. James tried to explain that my father had pardoned him, but Chesed insisted.  
When it turned out that Will's father, the once-pirate Bootstrap Bill Turner, was here as well and also pardoned, Chesed went berserk. He drew his sword in front of the children and leveled it at Will's throat, declaring both he and his father under arrest. With some quick thinking from Bill, he and his son were able to escape, but things just became worse. Chesed pulled rank over James and declared martial law in Port Royale until Will and Bill are arrested and hung for piracy. They placed the children and I under house arrest, and James tried to send a letter to my father, but Chesed is intercepting all mail. James is imprisoned and held under court martial.  
The only way I am able to send this letter to you is because one of the guards dotes on Ali, for she reminds him of his daughter. He agreed to sneak this out for me. Please, Jack, I am begging you: Help us. If all you can do is come and take my children away from this place and keep them somewhere safe until this is resolved, I will be grateful. Please help us.  
Elizabeth Turner**_

Chris looked up at Jack. They couldn't just leave the Turners to whatever fate Chesed had in store for them. "When do we leave?"

Jack drained his tankard and stood. "Right after we find one of the fastest smugglers bound for England and send a letter to good ol' Weatherby Swann." Jack gestured at Ragetti and Pintel and they stood. "We'll gather a crew. Chris, you write a letter to the guv'nor and enclose Liz's letter as well. Find whatever smuggler you can that has a fast vessel, maybe a pinnace or something like that. Rags, Pint: We're going to go and gather the rest of the crew."

Chris entrusted the two letters to a captain of a Dutch smuggler bound for London. Chris made sure that the man knew how important it was that the governor received the letter as soon as possible. The captain promised, "I will ensure that this envelope goes into the governor's hands and only his." With one of her skirtless curtsies, Chris bade farewell to the captain and returned to the _Black Pearl_ to find that the crew had been assembled, but not many were too happy. As soon as she boarded, the gangplank was pulled up, but without any joy.

"This is ridiculous Sparrow!" Anamaria growled. "We've been sailing nonstop for a month, and our first bit of shore leave, you take it away just like that!" Several other crewmembers vocalized their agreement with her words.

"Oh aye, because sailing for a month after a whole winter of lounging about Madagascar must be so hard on ye." Jack replied as Loki dropped from the rigging and onto Chris' shoulders. "This is important."

"I think ye should pay more mind to the welfare of your crew, captain." Anamaria replied. There was an intake of breath. Anamaria was usually the most cheeky and brutal on Jack, but now she was toeing the line of mutiny. Jack looked at her hard and Chris felt a tremor of fear in her stomach.

"Since it seems there is some confusion and suspicion on my motives," The look he cast Anamaria was so hard that Chris hoped she would never have to suffer under it, "I shall explain. Our old friend Admiral Chesed has seized Port Royale and is holding Liz Turner under house arrest with her kiddies. Will and Bootstrap are missing. They, unless any of ye have forgotten, are our friends. And I don't know about any of ye, but Captain Jack Sparrow takes care of his friends, and that is all I have to say about that. Now get to work, you scabbers dogs!" With that, Jack headed to the helm and Chris cast a look at him, questioning whether or not he was fine. He met eyes with her, gave an almost imperceptible nod, and motioned for Chris to go into the top. The quartermaster nodded and grabbed the nearest line to climb into the rigging and tend the sails.

Within two days the _Black Pearl_ had rounded the coast of Jamaica and was heading for Port Royale. Jack knew that the _Black Pearl_ would have to sneak into Port Royale, especially when he spied a ship blockade around Port Royale's harbor through his long glass the next day. The ship immediately whipped around before the ships could spy the pirate vessel or give chase. After another day of trying to find a place where the _Pearl_ could drop anchor, remain hidden, and those onboard could access Port Royale, the ship found shelter in a cove hidden by a lump of land. From that cove Port Royale could be reached from the northeast.

Jack decided that only a few would leave the _Black Pearl_. This included himself, Chris, Anamaria, Cotton, and Athos. Gibbs was left on the _Black Pearl_ to sail it if the need should arise or the ship was discovered, as well as the rest of the crew. Jack thought that infiltration would be the wisest way to go, with the crew of the _Pearl_ following if things got rather sticky. So he, Chris (without Loki, for she knew that he could attract attention and muddle things up, as he had done before), Cotton (his parrot had come, though, to relay messages to those on the _Pearl_ if need be), Athos, and Anamaria left the _Pearl_ and headed inland, finding a faint trail that would lead to the port.

After a couple hours of hiking, the quintet reached the outskirts of Port Royale and found that entering the port would not be as easy as previously thought. Around the exterior of the port were three sentries posted every fifty feet or so. Jack saw this and jerked as though he had been attached to a rope and someone had given it a pull when he saw the nearest triad. He hit the ground in the tall grass beside the path and gestured for his comrades to do the same. Once all were upon their bellies, Jack did not speak to them but instead made several hand gestures involving the fluttering of fingers, pantomiming cutting something in two, and something that looked like he was making a patted cake.

"…What?" Chris finally hissed, utterly flummoxed. Cotton, Athos and Anamaria looked likewise confounded, and they all looked to their captain.

Jack brought his finger to his lips. "Shh!" He popped his head up and gave a cursory glance to ensure that the sentries had not heard Chris and ducked back down. He opened his mouth to explain and then shook his head, spotting a rock large as both of his fists. "Never mind, I can do it meself anyway." His fingers curled around the rock and he picked it up with a sigh. The pirates poked their heads above the grass as Jack pulled his arm back and with a grunt, launched the rock at the sentries. One of them turned just as it arced through the air and the rock landed perfectly against his nose.

The man yelped and Chris saw just before she ducked back into the cover of grass that the man's nose was smashed and blood was squirting from the wound. The pirates heard a call, and through the grass they saw that the two other sentry groups had joined the one with the wounded man.

"What 'appened?" A voice asked. The cries of the hurt man did not lessen through the following exchange.

"All the sudden this rock fell from the air and smashed 'is nose!"

"Search the tall grass, you idiot! Someone threw that rock – And I'm not going to report this to the Admiral without a culprit!"

"Wait for my signal –" Jack whispered. The pirates crouched into the grass until a sentry walked by them. When he did, Jack picked up another stone from the ground and lobbed it twenty feet deeper into the grass, back the way they came.

"Sir! I heard something!" A small stampede occurred while all but the wounded man and one other charged into the grass behind them, and the small group of pirates was able to slip away without anyone ever knowing exactly who had been there. They climbed the hill the governor's mansion and the Turner's house rested upon, keeping low and moving slowly so as not to attract any attention should anyone be travelling near them.

They came over the crest of the hill and beheld the drive leading up to the Turner's house. Two marines in red flanked the door of the house, each armed with muskets. "How are we going to get in there?" Chris asked as they observed the two obstacles. Only the heads of the pirates could be seen over the hill's crest.

"Abandon ship!" Cotton's Parrot crowed.

"Stow it, Cot." The captain demanded. After some consideration, Jack looked at Athos and grinned. "All in good time, Chris. All in good time." He beckoned the younger pirate to him and began to speak low to him. A few minutes later, Athos came from further down the drive, walking until he was right before where the other three pirates were waiting beneath the crest. As Athos walked he swung his arms to and fro very casually. The guards watched him, but made no move. Athos stopped, looked at the guards, and flashed them a very toothy grin. "Hello, mates!" With that, Athos turned, dropped his trousers, and flashed his buttocks at the guards.

The guards looked upon each other and one of them shouted, "Oi!" before leaving his post to run for Athos. His counterpart joined him, and Athos struggled to pull up his trousers as he ran down the drive, two British Marines hot on his heels. When the three had vanished down the drive, Jack, Chris, Cotton, and Anamaria pulled themselves onto the drive and looked down the drive at the dust trail that had yet settled.

"You know, Anamaria, that boy's a great **ass**et." Jack laughed, looking at the woman. "But I suppose you already knew that."

Anamaria did not seem to be as amused by his joke. "You don't need to tell me. I swear, if he gets hurt, Sparrow –"

"Calm down, Anamaria, he'll be fine." Jack assured. "I wouldn't have asked him if I didn't think he could outrun those flabby Marines." He flashed a smile of gold at Anamaria, Cotton, and Chris before waltzing up the drive to the door of the house, the man, parrot, and two women following. He paused before the door and knocked three times.

"I told you for the last time, Admiral –!" The door was wrenched open and a very tired and harried Elizabeth Turner emerged. Dark rings were under her eyes, her hair was snarled and frizzy, and her clothes were wrinkled. Her mouth opened in surprise as she observed Chris, Anamaria, Cotton and his parrot, and none other than Captain Jack Sparrow on her front step.

"Missed me, I see." Jack said with a sly smile. He whipped his hat off of his head and opened his arms to the woman. Elizabeth lurched forward and enveloped Jack in a suffocating hug before pulling away enough to look in his face.

"Thank God, thank God for you Jack!" She said, tears in her eyes.

Jack looked uncomfortable. "Never heard that before." He said, looking to Cotton and Anamaria. The latter rolled her eyes while the former smiled.

Elizabeth suddenly seemed to realize that wanted pirates were upon her front step. She released Jack and grabbed his arm, stepping back into her house and pulling him inside. "In with all of you! In, in, before you're seen!" She spun her hands in the air as she beckoned the four pirates and parrot in, and when all had entered, she closed the door with a snap. She turned to them and began speaking, wringing her hands while relief washed her face. "I had been giving up hope but… Chris! You're still on the _Pearl_!" Elizabeth gave a kiss on the forehead to the girl who had once rescued her from a slow death aboard a trapped ship. "How lovely to see you…" She grabbed Chris' left hand to pat it and spotted the ring upon her finger. "You're married?" She asked, her brow furrowed.

"Ah… Ahem." Jack said, scratching his chin with his left hand so that his own wedding ring glinted in what light was coming in through the windows of the parlor.

Anamaria one more rolled her eyes. "I have no idea why you wanted _his_ help…"

Elizabeth smiled nonetheless. "I see." She said. "Like you said, Jack, it would have never worked out between us."

"Indisputably." Jack replied, grinning.

Elizabeth turned and led the three through the archway to the left, which opened to a formal dining room. "The children and I were just fixing something to eat. I'll fill you in over the meal. Chesed's dismissed all the servants, so it will just be us." She led them through another archway into a more intimate dining room, and then into the kitchen. There they found Ali, taller and a little older than the last time Chris and Jack saw her, smothering pieces of bread in a jam and feeding them to her little brother. Liam was around two years of age. The kitchen was scrubbed clean and a wooden crib sat on the floor next to the stand with a basin full of water and dishes. Inside was a tiny baby who was moving its arms and making cooing noises. Ali and Liam were sitting at a rough wooden table that had six chairs around it. The loaf of bread was upon the table, as well as the open jar of jam. Upon entering, Elizabeth said, "We have visitors, Alice."

"Yes, Mum..." Ali didn't even look at the following pirates but instead she turned from her little brother and washed her hands off in the basin. She turned to leave the room, but then she realized exactly who had entered the kitchen. Her eyes fell upon the pirate captain and they glinted with a devious light.

"Oh no..." Jack whispered, stopping dead in his tracks.

"'Oh no,' what?" Anamaria asked, bumping into Chris who then bumped into Jack. Chris gave her fellow female pirate a smile as Ali drew in an audible breath.

"Uncle... JACK!" Ali bounded onto a chair and then to the table top. She leaped across the bread and jam, and Chris pulled Anamaria and Cotton out of the way as Ali leaped from the table and hit Jack square in the chest. Her arms wrapped around the pirate captain as he rocked backwards and hit the floor so hard dust rose up from the floorboards. Ali seemed to be un-phased. "Uncle Jack! UNCLE JACK! Have you come to rescue us? Have you? Did it take long? Where's the monkey –?"

"Ali, get off of him! That's not how we treat our guests!" Elizabeth scolded. The impact of Jack against the floorboards had woken the baby in the cradle, and as the babe began crying, Elizabeth took the child into her arms and attempted to shush the little one. Liam stared at his sister and the pirate upon the floor, no small amount of alarm in his face.

"But Mum, it's _Uncle Jack_ –" Ali protested.

"I'm not going to tell you again, Alice Turner." Elizabeth replied. Grudgingly, Ali climbed off of Jack and watched as he sat up.

Jack sucked in a lungful of breath and put a hand against his heart. "Me life flashed before me eyes..." He closed his eyes and shuddered. Chris stifled laughter and saw that Anamaria was not amused. Cotton, on the other hand, was smiling. He looked at Chris and shook his head.

"Now Ali, help me get our guests something more suitable to eat, I'm sure they had quite a time getting here. Go ahead and sit…" Elizabeth said.

"Let me take the baby so your hands are free at least, Elizabeth." Chris bade. Elizabeth looked down at the baby in her arms and gently handed the blanketed babe over to Chris.

"Hold his head… There you are. His name is Tobias." Elizabeth said, turning to begin her retrieval of food.

"Ahoy there, Tobias." Chris said to the little baby. He had dark hair and eyes like his parents, and he looked up at Chris slightly suspiciously. Chris smiled at him and looked up to see Jack watching her from down on the floor. He was smiling as well.

The pirates sat down and after Liam stared at Cotton's Parrot for a moment, Cotton beckoned him over and leaned down so that he could stroke the parrot's feathers. Once he had warmed up to him, Cotton sat the boy on one of his knees and began to bounce him up and down. Anamaria sat in her chair; arms crossed and looking sulky. Within minutes, all were supping upon cold chicken and day old bread. "So, Liz darling... What exactly is going on here?" Jack asked as he pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair.

"I told you most of it in my letter." Elizabeth looked to her children before continuing. "Chesed just... He came and started questioning Bill and Will. It was civil at first, until one day, Chesed shows up with a dozen soldiers, and my husband and the admiral ended up throwing fists. The soldiers went in to break it up, and Bill and Will broke away from them and made it down to the cellar. They escaped through the chimney of the fireplace down there and disappeared." She sighed. "Since then, Chesed has come at least once every two days, and he's dismissed the nurse, and the few other servants we keep. I haven't seen head or tail of the two... And apparently neither has Chesed. Norrington came after they escaped and offered to smuggle the children and I out on a military ship heading for Kingston. I wouldn't take it, because I just can't up and leave and not know my husband's fate." Elizabeth sighed once more. "And then Norrington was court martialed for writing to my father, and I wrote to you. You know the rest."

"So you don't want us to take you, you just want us to take the kiddies?" Jack asked. He looked to Chris who was still cradling Tobias and Cotton who was bouncing William upon his knee still. Ali was toying with her food as Jack looked back to her mother. "Are ye sure about that? I mean, a ship full o' pirates isn't the most nuturin' environment."

"Yes. I'm not leaving here without Will unless it's in a coffin." Elizabeth's statement was cold and determined. Ali's fork fell to the plate and all in the kitchen were silent until a rapid knocking upon the front door broke the silence. Tobias began crying, Ali stood and pulled Liam from Cotton's knee, and Elizabeth stood.

"It's Chesed." Elizabeth announced. She pulled up a rug that covered the floor beside the table to reveal a trapdoor and commanded, "Get down to the cellar, and if Ali jumps up and down on the floorboards three times, climb up the fireplace chimney and down the trellis. Get away from the house as fast as you can." She pulled the trapdoor open revealing steps down into the dark cellar. "You've gone through all the trouble to get here, but now I think it will all be for naught. If they leave, I'll come and fetch you."

"Aye, Liz. Good luck to you." Jack stood and kissed her on the cheek before taking the first step into the cellar. He turned back and looked at Ali. "Make sure to help your mum and behave until this clears up. Can you be brave for her, sweetie?" Ali nodded and Jack reached forward to chuck her beneath the chin. "That's my girl." Ali smiled and Jack continued down the stairs, followed by Anamaria and Cotton. Chris handed Tobias to Elizabeth as the knocking became more insistent.

"We're going to help you, Elizabeth, I promise." Chris said before following her fellow pirates into the cellar. The trapdoor closed behind her and she heard the rug fall back onto the floor. After her eyes adjusted, she observed that the cellar was dark and the floor made of packed earth. There were several barrels of preserved food and sacks of flour, as well as a fireplace that looked like it had been years since it was used. The pirates used the sacks of flour as seats as they waited for Ali's jumps or Elizabeth to come and retrieve them.

Light filtered in through the cracks of the floorboards of the kitchen. Every little movement made creaking sounds. The pirates listened as Elizabeth walked from the kitchen to elsewhere in the house and they heard indistinct voices that slowly grew louder until steps stopped right above their heads. They heard the entire exchange clearly. "How many times must you harass us?" Elizabeth asked. Chris could tell from the sound of many other feet that Chesed was not alone.

"Save your self-righteous anger for someone who thinks it true, Mrs. Turner." Chris had never heard the admiral speak before, but his voice was as cold as the ocean depths. It sent a shiver through her spine. Cotton's Parrot bobbed its head with worry as Chesed continued. "I have a question for you." Something heavy fell onto the floor boards, and there was a muffled groan and a squeak of shock from Elizabeth. "Have you ever seen this boy, Mrs. Turner?"

"Athos..." Anamaria whispered. She reached toward the floorboards as though she could touch him.

"Never, Admiral Chesed." Elizabeth's voice sounded horrified. "What… What did he do to receive such –?"

"He flashed his rear to some of my men right outside your house. My men caught him and I treated him accordingly." There was the sound of a kick and a groan from above. Anamaria began shaking and she clapped a hand to her mouth.

Jack's face was grim. He gingerly touched Anamaria's shoulder and said, "We're not sticking around here longer. Let's start heading up the chimney." He nodded to the fireplace and took a step towards it.

"What about Athos?" Anamaria asked. Though she was clearly upset, her voice had not lost its determination and grit.

Jack looked at her. "We won't be able to help him being cornered down here like mice. We'll come back with more of the crew and find where they're holding him. We're going to help him, Ana, we just can't do it right now." Anamaria nodded once and the pirates crossed to the fireplace. Jack ducked inside and removed the grate from the inside of the chimney. He climbed up the chimney first, using the rungs that chimney sweeps would use to climb up and clean the soot from the inside. Anamaria climbed next, followed by Cotton. When Chris finally ducked in, she heard three clear thumps upon the floorboards.

The inside of the chimney was sooty and ill-ventilated though only God knew when a fire had last burned in the fireplace. Chris' hands and the bottom of her feet were soon as black as Jack's dreadlocks from the soot, and though the width of the chimney was roomy enough to handle someone of perhaps Pintel's size, black smears soon adorned her shirt, trousers, and cheeks. Jack removed the grate from the top of the chimney and hopped out, turning to offer a hand to Anamaria, Cotton, and finally Chris. The rake of the roof was not so steep as to make it impossible to walk across, but the group had to be careful as they approached the edge where the trellis met the roof. As they walked, they left a trail of sooty footprints behind them.

Cotton offered to climb down first. He and his parrot were about one-third of the way to the ground when the trellis splintered and Cotton fell to the ground. His parrot screeched and flew from his shoulders, yelling, "Snapped line! Snapped line!" Cotton's fall was cushioned by the bushes rimming the house but the squawks of his parrot were noticed by two sentries guarding the perimeter of the house. They watched as Cotton pulled himself from the bushes.

"Things just got interesting." Jack said, looking to Chris, before he leaped from the roof and plummeted downward. He let out a yell as he fell, but it abruptly ended when he hit the bushes. The bushes recoiled and flipped Jack onto the ground. Anamaria looked at Chris, shrugged, and the pair followed suit. They were cushioned by the bushes instead of hurled onto the ground. As they climbed from the bushes, the sentries seemed confused as to what to do.

"Stop in the name of the King!" One of them ordered finally, pointing. He began marching towards them and his companion decided to follow.

"I think not." Jack said, and with a look to his fellow pirates, he took off into a sprint for the nearby tree line with Cotton, Chris, and Anamaria following.

"I said stop!" The sentry yelled, and now he and his partner began their pursuit in earnest. They chased the pirates into the trees but the lightly equipped pirates were able to move through the thickening foliage easier than the sentries in their uniforms with their muskets. Soon Cotton, Anamaria, Jack, and Chris were running with two in front and two directly behind.

"We should spread out; you're trodding on my feet!" Anamaria said when suddenly the entire group was pulled up and into the air. They yelled in alarm and Chris realized that they had been pulled up by a net cleverly disguised as the forest floor.

"What the bleedin' hell?" Jack asked.

"Sparrow, watch where you're touching!" Anamaria hissed.

"Someone's foot is in my –" Chris began.

"SHHHHH!" While Cotton couldn't speak, he could shush. His fellow pirates complied and within ten seconds, the two sentries came upon the spot where they hung, huffing and puffing for air. They did not think to look up.

"Where'd they go? Where'd... I just saw 'em!" The one who had decided to give chase gasped.

"Mayhap they doubled back to trick us. Let's go!" The two turned and headed back towards the Turner house. When they could no longer hear the sentries' movements, Cotton's Parrot suddenly fluttered down into the tree from which the net was hanging.

"RAWK! Hoist the sails!"

"Hold on, Cot!" Jack said. They were nothing but a tangle of limbs inside the net and Jack couldn't reach his sword or pistol. "Let's get down from here. Anyone able to reach their sword?"

"I can get my dagger. One sec—" Anamaria began. Her hand nudged past Chris' chest and to the scabbard on her hip. Just as she was about to pull the blade, there was the sound of breaking twigs.

"Don't touch it." A heavy voice called from below and several pistols were heard cocking. Chris' eyes darted down and she saw a dark man stepping out of the bushes, a pistol in his hand. He was soon joined by a few others, all with pistols or muskets aimed at them, and even a few bows as well. Anamaria's hand was stayed. "Let them down." The dark man ordered.

One of the men retreated into the bushes and within seconds the net fell to the floor with a small crash. Chris was near the net's opening and able to emerge from the trap without trouble while her fellow pirates were tangled even further. Several guns and a few bows were aimed at her as she stood. She raised her hands and was about say something when a familiar voice commanded, "Don't shoot." Will Turner, his father at his side, had stepped forward from the mass of men. "They aren't Navy or Marines. They're pirates."

"How do we know?" The dark man asked, jabbing his pistol in Chris' direction. "I trust you, William, but they could be disguised as pirates." Jack was in the process of pulling himself from the net and his torso and head had emerged.

"Honestly, how can you believe someone looking like Jack ol' boy over there isn't a pirate?" A new male voice asked. Chris' eyes sought out its owner and she saw that the man who spoke possessed one blue eye and one green and a full head of black hair. Antony Marak had stepped forward as well, and he was the one who had spoken. Chris locked eyes with the man and she felt a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Jack?" That got the dark man's attention. He seemed to be the leader of this forest band. "He couldn't be speaking of your friend, Jack Sparrow?" He turned to Will.

"_Captain_ Jack Sparr-OH!" Jack had extracted himself from the net further but when he tried to stand he promptly tripped and fell. Chris stepped over to him, mindful that any threatening move could cause her to be shot, and untangled his feet.

"Stop!" The dark man commanded. Chris paused in her action and stood ramrod straight, making sure that the men could see her hands. The leader looked at the others. "Help them from the net. Tie them up and blindfold them. I will be the one to decide whether or not to trust them."

Since Chris was the only one untangled, she was the first to have her wrists bound and to be blindfolded. She looked at Bootstrap and Will just before she could no longer see, and they gave her what she hoped was meant to be encouraging looks. After she was blindfolded, she only had to wait a moment or two before she was gently prodded forward. She continued to put one foot in front of the other, feeling the change of terrain underneath her bare feet and the coolness of shade upon her skin.

Finally, the dark man pulled off Chris' blindfold and looked hard at her. Chris was able to quickly survey her surroundings as the inside of a wooden hut with no furnishings. The dark man snapped his fingers to draw attention back to him. When he saw that he had it, he asked. "Where did you come from?"

There was many ways to answer that question, some sarcastic and some fairly true. Chris decided it would be in her best interest not to be sarcastic. "Tortuga." She answered, feeling that her wrists had chafed slightly on the journey to wherever the hut was.

"What is your business in Port Royale, then?" The man demanded. Chris noticed that his dark eyes were intense and his jaw was strong. He was bald, but a gray and black goatee rimmed his mouth.

"Elizabeth Turner asked for our help to get her children away from Port Royale until she could find her husband. And ye know who her husband is by the looks of it." Chris replied.

"What's your name?"

"Chris Sparrow."

This seemed to surprise the man. "Sister of Captain Jack Sparrow?" He asked.

"Wife." Chris replied with a slight smile. She was sure the answer would surprise many.

The dark man left the hut with a curious expression on his face, leaving Chris bound and standing. She listened hard, hearing a few raised voices some distance away in argument, and then silence. A few minutes later, Marak entered the hut. Her stomach shivered upon seeing him. "He trusts you." Marak announced, going behind her to untie her wrists. "You're off the hook."

Chris no longer felt the easiness around Marak that she had on Madagascar over a year ago. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and goose bumps broke out like a rash down her arms as she felt Marak's breath on her neck. As soon as her hands were free, she rubbed her wrists and turned to him. "Where's Jack?" She demanded.

"He's outsi—" With this information, Chris bolted out the door, leaving Marak to gape after her in surprise.

Outside, Chris found a circle of similar huts built right up against the trees. Several had gardens in front of them with chickens pecking around on the ground, and in the middle of the encirclement of huts was a large fire pit around which were logs for seating. Jack, Anamaria, Cotton, Will, Bill, and the dark man now stood around the fire pit. As she approached them, Bill opened his arms wide. "There's Chris. Come here, you bucket of tar." She obliged the man with a warm hug.

"You've grown a bit stout about the middle." Chris teased when she pulled from the hug. She poked Bootstrap's paunch to make her point.

"What else does a grandfather have to do except spoil his grandkids and get fat?" Bootstrap replied, smiling. The dark man cleared his throat and all attention was turned to him.

"My name is Robins." He stated. "I am the leader of this place, and as long as you are willing to help us and keep this place secret, you are welcome here."

"What exactly is this place, mate?" Jack asked.

"It is a camp for runaway slaves and outlaws. Just the type of people I believe you would congregate with, Mr. Sparrow." Robins replied, but no smile danced upon his lips.

"_Captain_ Sparrow." Jack corrected before continuing. "And you're right, Robins, I would."

"How's Elizabeth?" Will asked from where he stood. He had been relatively quiet but it appeared that his patience had run out. Robins did not reprimand him, but instead looked to Jack for the answer.

"She's about as well as she could be." Chris replied before Jack could. "She's scared, but holding up. Chesed has her and the children under house arrest."

"How are the children?" Will pressed. "That bastard hasn't had them hurt, has he?" His father placed a steadying hand upon his shoulder.

"Ali's as strong as a safe; she's been helping take care of Liam." Jack sat down on one of the logs circling the fire pit. "Tobias seemed as fit as a fiddle. They could be doin' a lot worse."

Will nodded solemnly, taking a seat across from Jack. "Chesed showed up just a week after Tobias was born, and the day or so after that, we were gone." Will let out a shuddering breath. "We wandered in the jungle for three days before Robins found us, and we've been here ever since. We've been trying to orchestrate some plan to get her out, or to drive Chesed from port, but if this place were to be discovered…" Will looked at the huts and the gardens, "Their entire lives could be destroyed. It's a big risk."

""Now with the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow, though," Bootstrap winked at Jack, "We should be able to do something about that wanker."

Jack grinned appreciatively at Bill. "Well, he has one of our crew, and we need to get him out of there." Anamaria nodded and Jack looked to her. "I say the sooner the better, because they could get him to tell them where the _Black Pearl_ is, and then we have no hope for help if things get sticky."

Robins nodded. "If we lay a plan, I can have my men ready by tomorrow. We're tired of sulking here in the trees, and our supplies are getting low. I believe with your arrival, Captain Sparrow, you have decided that the time for action is now."

Jack clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Then let's get a plan going!"

By that evening, a plan was set into motion to be enacted the next day. Though the members of the camp didn't have very many man-made items, they did have a massive amount of alcohol. Several of the outlaws and runaway slaves were going to set the jungle on fire a good way off from the Turner house but very close to the shipyards of Port Royale, in which some Navy ships were being either built or repaired. Jack, Will, Anamaria, Cotton, Chris, and Bill would storm the Turner house, knocking out any soldiers that were still on guard and rescue Elizabeth and the children. After the Turners were sent with Cotton to the safety of _Black Pearl_, Jack, Chris, and Anamaria would sneak into the fort and release Athos before making their way to the _Pearl_, and lastly, sailing out of Port Royale scott-free. Robins and his men, on the other hand, were going to ransack the port and get what supplies they could before heading back to their hidden village and regrouping for a bigger attack that would attempt to drive Chesed of his men from Port Royale. They were fine with the port under control of Norrington, but Chesed was too threatening to their way of life.

An empty hut was provided for the four pirates to sleep in, and that night, Chris couldn't fall into slumber. She rolled over several times, slept close to Jack, slept a few feet from Jack, slept by Anamaria and Cotton, slept above and under the blanket provided, and still, she didn't feel the least bit drowsy. Around midnight, Chris left the hut, figuring a walk and maybe a cool drink of water would help lull her to sleep.

Outside, everything was still. In the moonlight the huts shone a ghostly white, as if to enhance the inertness of the camp. The few sentries posted weren't very close to each other in proximity, and everyone else had gone to sleep. Chris passed the dead fire and left the tight circle of huts. She walked into the trees for a few yards before reaching the brook that was the water source for the camp. She knelt down as she came to the small running body of water and scooped up the moon's reflection, splashing it on her face and letting it drip off.

"Just so you know, Whiskey Girl, I'm here. I don't want you to fall in the water like you did when we first met." Marak's soft voice came from the trees behind her. Chris turned around slowly, at the same time wiping her face with her sleeve, and beheld Marak emerging from the trees. He was dressed exactly as he was the first time they met, and the first time he called her Whiskey Girl. Chris felt nauseous just looking at him. She also felt as though she had just walked into a very dangerous situation.

"Hello, Marak." She felt very jumpy and wished she had her knife with her. "Fancy meeting you here."

He smiled and walked forward, his different colored eyes glinting in the moonlight. Chris felt like she was trapped. The brook was at her back, with Port Royale some distance farther, and any help was in front of her and through Marak. She didn't really know what to expect. "When we last parted, I didn't get to give you a kiss goodbye." He leaned in and Chris stopped him.

"Jack and I are married now, Marak." His face was a mask of shock and maybe even anger. "And even if we weren't, I would give you a kiss after the circumstances of our last parting." Marak and Chris stared at each other for a few apprehensive moments and then he leaned away. Chris exhaled.

Marak took out a dagger and began cleaning his nails with it. Chris could feel the dangerous tension between both of them growing, and her eyes were set upon the blade shining dully in the moonlight. "I thought you had better taste than that." He said, flicking a bit of filth from the tip of the blade. "I thought you would forgive me."

"And I thought that ye wouldn't hit a woman if she hadn't done anything to harm ye. Turns out I was wrong." Chris replied, cocking her head to the side. She suddenly wished Loki were with her. If Marak did anything to her, the little ape could raise the alarm.

Marak had an odd expression on his face that was between a smirk and a frown. "I was protecting my sister's honor." He brought the dagger to rest at his hip.

"And I was protecting my captain." Chris replied, her eyes still upon the blade.

Marak noticed. He sheathed the dagger and took a step towards her. "I make you uncomfortable."

"You would have beaten the life out of my now-husband over a lie if no one had stopped you. Of course you make me uncomfortable!" Chris said. She could feel the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Something wasn't right.

"You think my sister lied." Marak stated, his eyes flashing.

"Jack may drink a bit too much, and he isn't known for monogamy or his honesty," Chris admitted, "But I know that he is not the kind of filth that would force himself upon a woman."

Marak looked at her with disbelief in his face. "Of course his _wife_ would say such a thing." Chris went to talk but Marak stopped her. "Why are you here?"

"The Turners are very dear old friends." Chris responded. "I take care of my friends."

Marak nodded. "And so you'll share their fate as determined by the Admiral." His words were harsh and cold as he reached into the inside of his cloak.

Chris' jaw dropped in surprise. "What –?" Before she could do anything, Marak pulled a short club from the inside of his cloak and struck Chris upside the head with it. Chris crumpled, and before she lost consciousness, Marak caught her and settled her onto the jungle floor. "I am sorry, Whiskey Girl." She felt his lips upon hers and then she only knew blackness.

She returned to consciousness a few moments later, for her head had slowly slipped into the brook from where she lay, and the shock of cold water brought her back to her senses. Chris sat up and her head reeled. She moaned and felt blood trickle from a gash at her temple. It took a moment or two for her to recall what had happened. Marak had spoken of the Admiral so did that mean that he was a spy for Chesed? Her stomach bottomed out. If he was a spy for Chesed, then the camp and everyone in it was in danger, and their carefully laid plans could all be for naught. She needed to wake the camp, she needed to tell Robins and Jack and Will. Chris pulled herself to her feet and began stumbling through the trees. Her head was still spinning, so she did not have the presence of mind to be quiet.

"Halt!" A sentry stepped from the trees as she drew near to camp and drew his bow and arrow, aiming right at her.

"I'm with Captain Jack Sparrow!" Chris called, halting. "I'm his wife and we have got to wake the camp!"

"Why?" The sentry asked, his bow still drawn.

"Because I just found out that Antony Marak is a spy for Chesed."

The sentry wasn't expecting that answer. "How –"

"My lord! Do you really want to hear every single detail while Chesed's men could be bearing down upon us?" Chris asked. The sentry didn't. He beckoned her to follow him and they both marched for the camp, making a fair bit of noise.

The racket of their approach had woken some of those in the camp by the time they arrived. Jack, Anamaria, Cotton, the Turners, and Robins were some of those people. Jack immediately sprang forward to Chris' side upon seeing the bleeding gash on her head. He raised his fingers to pull away her hair and inspect it closer, but Chris swatted him away. "No bloody time for that, Sparrow!" She mumbled and then announced in a clearer and louder voice, "Marak is a spy for Chesed! He – He whacked me, and –" Chris didn't realize how much her head was spinning. She was dizzy as she continued speaking. "He left! He's probably going to Chesed right now!" A wave of murmurs tumbled through those who had awakened, but with a wave, Robins silenced them.

"Wake those that are sleeping. Take down camp and run to the upper hills." He commanded his people. "Stay there until I return. If I do not, you know what to do." His people immediately dispersed into the surrounding huts. Robins turned to Will, Bootstrap, and the pirates of the _Black Pearl_. "If you want to salvage anything of our plans, you will follow me now with no questions." Jack looked like he was about to say something, but Chris held up her hand to stop him. The dark man nodded and said, "Follow me."

Robins led them into a hut that resembled a makeshift armory. He selected a long blade, two pistols, and a musket. He also grabbed a brown leather satchel and slung it on his back. Will and Bootstrap armed their selves accordingly without a word. Robins kicked open a chest and said, "Your weapons. I suggest you arm yourselves." Cotton and Chris exchanged looks with his parrot squawking slightly as they pulled their weapons from the chest and strapped them on. Once everyone was armed, Robins led them from the hut.

Outside, Chris observed that the camp that had been asleep only moments before was suddenly surging with life. Huts were already being taken down, and netting with leaves and sticks covering it were thrown over the felled hut walls for cover. Robins led the pirates past the activity of the camp and into the jungle without a second look. He hopped over bushes, darted around trees, and leaped over burrows as if he had been following the way through the jungle every day of his life. The pirates and Turners had a bit more trouble, stumbling and often falling only to be picked up or pushed on by the others.

Finally, Robins stopped them with his hand and then crouched down. Chris surveyed that they had come up next to the wall of the Fort Charles upon the coast of Port Royale. Robins held a finger to his lips and then one to his ear and pointed to the forth. As they listened, a group of men walked by up on the ramparts. "Not only are you giving me a camp full of outlaws and escaped slaves, but the crew of the _Black Pearl_ **and **the Turners?" Chesed's voice asked.

"Aye, admiral. They're all asleep right now and haven't a clue I'm even gone." Marak's voice replied.

"Wonderful. I'll send some of my best men at once. Now, Mr. Marak, about your position in the Royal Navy –"

"I'd also like to speak about the welfare of a certain woman in their company…" The voices floated away and all but Robins turned to look at Chris after Marak's last statement. Chris tried to give them a look that demanded, "What?" but Robins nodded twice and beckoned the group forward. The group pressed up against the bottom of the rampart wall and inched along until Robins came to a certain stone. He wedged his fingers between the stone and the mortar and pulled it out. That was the first of several until a hole that was big enough for each person to climb through appeared in the rampart wall. Robins motioned for them to crawl in, and then they did, Chris observed that she was inside of a small armory. The only light came in through the crack under the door, but Chris could see gleam of muskets and swords in the faint light, and she could smell the powder.

Robins was the last inside, and he replaced the stones behind him. Though he said that there were to be no questions, Jack couldn't help but ask, "Just how did you know that hole was there?"

Robins did not appreciate the inquiry. "We use it to free other prisoners. I discovered the weakness in the wall when I first escaped here. I came back and exploited it to our advantage." The dark man crossed to the door and pressed his ear against it. He turned back to the others and said, "It sounds like the coast is clear. This is what we're going to do: the commodore is being held here as a prisoner. If we free him, I'm sure that we can persuade him to get the Turners out of Port Royale **and** he may be able to regain some control. If he has trouble, my men and I will back him up, and if the _Black Pearl_ and her crew could do the same, we may be able to drive Chesed from the Jamaica."

Jack smiled. "Your plan is to use pirates to oust one Navy power and reinstate another? Sounds daft."

"Daft like you." Chris replied. Anamaria nodded vigorously and Cotton shrugged.

"Touché."

Robins put his ear to the door once more and, hearing nothing, he held a finger to his lips and opened the door (since the armory didn't lock from the inside, they didn't have to worry about picking the lock). His head swiveled into the hallway and then he beckoned the others from the armory. The hallway was lit by lanterns and clear. Robins lead them out onto the ramparts where it was much darker. Here they faced a predicament, for there was only one entrance to the brig and it was guarded by two red-coated Marines.

Robins reached into the satchel that was upon his back and pulled out a coconut. This was no ordinary coconut, Chris saw, for it had a length of bristly hemp rope sticking out of the top. It appeared that a hole had at one time been drilled into the part where the rope stuck out, but now it was sealed with wax. Torches lined the ramparts, and Robins instructed the pirates to duck down. The guards had not yet noticed them, so Robins lit the hemp fuse with a nearby torch and tossed it in an arc onto the stairs near the brig entry which led to the first level of the fort. Upon impact, the coconut shattered and fluid inside of the shell exploded into flame. While the stairs were stone, the fluid still burned brightly and licked at the steps.

"What happened?" One of the guards asked as Robins hurled another coconut and the flames jumped even higher. Chris observed that it was a mixture of oil and something else inside the coconut, and the flames weren't dying out any time soon.

"We have to put it out! The fort can't burn down!" The other guard replied. The two then ran from the doors and started unbuckling the straps across their chests so they could use their coats to beat the flames out. In their furor to save the fort's stairs, the group slipped past them and into the brig.

When they entered, those inside the cells immediately realized that they were not the Marine guards or the jailer. A ring of keys were found hanging on a nail on the wall (Chris once more mused about how secure a nail on the wall really was for keys to cells) and Robins began freeing those inside the cells. "Be free! Run, run for the jungle and be free my brothers!" Robins said as the former prisoners streamed from the cells.

"Thank you, thank you!"

"God bless you!"

The cries of thanks came only from a few, and as the group came to the last two cells, they found Norrington sitting in one and Athos laying in the other. Norrington's wig was missing and he was not wearing his Navy jacket, but he looked like he had been well taken care in comparison to the others. Athos, on the other hand, was pale, unconscious, and had a fine mist of perspiration on his skin. Bruises were visible on any exposed skin, his lip was swollen and split, but the worst wound he possessed was without a doubt his right leg. From the knee down, his calf and foot were swollen and a blackish green color.

"Oh God, Athos!" Anamaria wrenched the keys from Robins' hands and unlocked the young man's cell. As soon as the door was open, she threw herself inside and knelt at his side. Chris had never before seen Anamaria so upset. Her lip trembled and her slender fingers touched Athos' chest gently. "Oh, please don't be dead, please don't be dead –"

Chris wrenched her eyes away from Anamaria and looked to her brother in the next cell as Jack plucked the keys from Athos' lock and went to open Norrington's door. "Sparrow." The commodore greeted the new arrivals with a nod. "Will, Bill. Christiana. I thought you all would be along soon."

"Anamaria, is Athos alive?" Chris asked, turning back to a woman bent double over Athos' body. If Athos had died, she didn't know what Anamaria would do…

"He's breathing." Anamaria announced. "But it's weak." She put her hands on either side of Athos' face. "Wake up, Athos, oh God, please wake up!"

"Sorry we couldn't get here fast enough." Jack said, though it was uncertain whether he was speaking to Norrington or Athos. He opened the door of Norrington's cell before crossing and entering Athos' cell and looking at his bloated leg.

"Chesed crushed it with a barrel of shot during what he calls 'questioning.'" Norrington said as he pulled himself from his cell and exited it, coming to stand beside Chris outside of Athos' cell. "As you can see, it's become gangrenous. He became unconscious this evening while I was pleading with Chesed to get a doctor. It needs to be amputated."

Jack looked from the leg to Chris. "He might not make it back to the _Pearl_."

Her stomach flipped. "What are you suggesting?" She asked, even though she had a pretty good idea what he was talking about. Jack's eyes moved to the sword at her waist. "Oh no, no, NO. I am not in the right state of mind to do that!" Chris said, throwing her hands up in the air. "I've suffered head trauma!"

"You're more experienced with wounds than anyone on the _Pearl_." Anamaria insisted, looking from Athos' face to Chris. "You're the only one who can do it."

Chris shook her head. She was no surgeon! She just stitched people up and used common sense! What if she accidentally killed Athos while trying to save his life? "I can't –"

"You must." Norrington replied. "Your friend is dying, Thimble. You need to do this."

From out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack mouth, 'Thimble?' Will, Bootstrap, Cotton, and Anamaria were looking at her. Chris cursed and looked at her unconscious friend. "I'll need somewhere with a fire, sharp blades, and hot tar would be preferable."

Norrington's office was over the ramparts and down a hallway, so he exited first to find that the two guards were gone and the fire was out. Chris figured that the guards were either startled by the freed prisoners and had given chase, or had decided to join the outlaws instead of stick around and receive punishment from Chesed. Norrington led them to his office, which was lined with bookcases, had a polished fireplace, a desk with a cushy chair, and several stools. Another door led to Norrington's private quarters.

Athos was laid down on Norrington's desk, and it was decided that Norrington's sword would be used for the procedure. Will and Bootstrap cleared off the desk while Robins and Cotton kept watch for Chesed or any of his men while Jack lit a fire in the hearth. Anamaria held Athos' hand while Chris and Norrington looked for a substitute for hot tar. Norrington thought that candle wax would do the job, and so he put several candlesticks in a pot on the crane over the fire.

Chris crossed to the desk where the unconscious Athos lay and looked at the sword glinting dimly in the firelight. "Do you have any rum?" She asked. She needed something to calm her nerves, and something to bathe the blade in.

"Um, no..." Norrington said, crossing to one of the bookshelves. "But what about scotch?" He pulled a bible from the shelf to reveal that it held no pages but hid a half-empty bottle of the liquor. He pulled the bottle from its hiding place and replaced the hollow bible before turning back to Chris.

"You aren't as much as a ponce as I thought, Commodore." Jack stated with an awed grin as the bottle was handed to Chris. Norrington ignored him and watched as Chris took the scotch and poured some of it on the blade of the sword and some on Athos' knee. She then downed a few gulps of the liquor and smacked her lips together. She set the bottle down and instructed, "Hold him down in case he wakes up." The last bit came out in a squeak. Jack and Bootstrap complied with her request, while Anamaria affectionately stroked Athos' hair and held his hand tightly.

Chris took the sword in her hand and poised it over his knee. The blade shook uncontrollably and she stuttered, "I-I need something smaller, I can't do it with this, it's like trying to sew with a bloody belaying pin! I can't do it with this!"

"Here," Anamaria took the dagger from her waist and slapped it into Chris' hands. "Use this."

"It's not properly –" Chris began, seeing the none-too-sharp edge.

"We don't have time." Norrington said firmly. He leaned on the desk enough so that he could look into Chris' face. "I know you can do this, Thimble." Jack mouthed, 'Thimble?' once again. "So do it."

Chris bathed the blade in scotch before draining the rest of the liquor herself. She took the belt that held her pistol's holster and her sword around her leg and she wrapped it around Athos' leg at the knee. She pulled it as tight as she could and Will held the leather taught, not allowing any slack whatsoever. Before she began to cut, Chris looked at the pale and trembling Athos and the worried Anamaria. She took a deep, steadying breath and laid the dagger against Athos' knee.

Blade cut through skin, and then muscle, and then bone, and moments later Athos' leg was lying separate from his body. Chris, her hand now firm, heated Anamaria's dagger in the fire and cauterized the leg just above where the kneecap would have been with the hot blade. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room. Athos hadn't even flinched during the entire procedure, but he was still breathing. Chris grabbed the pot full of melted wax and dunked Athos' stump into it several times until the cauterized flesh was sealed with wax, and just like that, her job was done.

Chris was replacing the pot of wax when an enraged cry from out on the ramparts echoed into the office. Chris recognized the tone as Chesed's. Norrington looked at his door as Robins and Cotton entered. "Chesed has found the brig empty." The dark man announced.

"Abandon ship!" Cotton's Parrot cried.

Norrington looked to Jack and Anamaria and commanded, "Take the boy, leave the leg." Chris looked at him questioningly, but he did not provide any answer as to why he wanted a dismembered leg to stay behind in his office. "Will, Bill, stay here. The rest of you lot get into my sleeping quarters."

Anamaria and Jack gently picked Athos up from the desk and Robins opened the door for them as they carried the unconscious amputee into the other room. Cotton followed, and then Robins. Chris was about to follow when she realized that her sword and pistol still lay upon the floor. She went to retrieve them just as she heard steps outside the door. "Close it!" She hissed at Robins. The door to the other room snapped shut as the door to the hallway banged open. Bootstrap kicked Chris' rapier and pistol beneath Norrington's desk as Chris came to a pause behind it, the height of the desk hiding the fact that she was wearing trousers. She was able to pull the damask bandana from her hair just as Chesed entered, triumph upon his face as he beheld Norrington. He hair was not curly as when Chris previous saw him, so she figured he must have worn and wig and now sported his own brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. His ice blue eyes glistened with joy.

"Norrington, what bleeding part of, 'You're under arrest' don't you understand?" Chesed's voice boomed as he held his nose high in the air in victory. He then beheld Will and Bootstrap. "And not only do I find you, but the Turners! So Port Royale is thick with thieves, isn't it?" His eyes then spotted Chris and confusion crossed his face. "Who are you?"

Chris' knees began shaking for no reason and she opened her mouth to speak, but Norrington interrupted her, stepping forward. Though he wore neither wig nor anything to announce his Royal Navy rank, his chest was puffed out in pride and he held all the command of any general or admiral in His Majesty's services. "First of all, Admiral, the escaped prisoners freed me in the confusion of the jailbreak, and they only escaped because two of **your** men were guarding the door." He held up the corresponding number of fingers as he made his points. "Second, I have here," he joined Chris behind the desk and opened a drawer from which he pulled out two papers with a signature and seal at the bottom of each, "the papers, signed by Governor Weatherby Swann, granting clemency to both William Turner and William Turner the second. The papers for William the second date back a few years, but William the elder's papers have just been signed last month. I believe that when I first announced that I had these papers in my possession, you threatened me with arrest if I made such scandalous claims, followed by my arrest and impending court martial when I attempted to write to your superiors of your breach of protocol and asinine actions… sir."

Chris had never before seen her brother speak in such an eloquently insulting way. She was very proud to see the admiral's face turn a shade of angry puce. "Why you –" Chesed roared, and it was then that he noticed that there was a severed human leg accompanied with a fair amount of blood upon Norrington's desk. "_WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT_?" He demanded, pointing at the body part.

"Don't you recognize a severed human leg, sir? Being in combat as much as you have, I was sure you would." Chris had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at her brother's cool question and demeanor.

"What is it doing in here, Norrington?" Chesed demanded. He looked panicked.

Norrington's tone became condescending and sarcastic. "Sir, I am sure you remember the boy you, ah… 'Questioned' because you believed that he was a pirate. I'm sure you remember crushing his foreleg with a barrel of shot as well. I believe that this woman, the local midwife, could explain what happened next." Norrington looked to Chris and she understood that Norrington was creating a reason for why she was here.

"I usually don't handle amputations." Chris said. "I'm not a surgeon after all, but I was the nearest help." She bent her head and spoke reverently as she continued. "When I had arrived, it was apparent that blood was pooling in his leg. I had to amputate to try and save him, but it didn't help." She crossed herself and said, "May the poor lad rest in peace. I… I did the best that I could…" She sniffled for effect.

Chesed looked disturbed at this bit of news. "Where's the body?" He demanded.

"It's being buried right now. I thought that I would keep the leg, however, as evidence." Norrington walked back to the front of the desk.

Chesed's cold blue eyes narrowed. "For what?"

Norrington smiled curtly. "I assume two Marines are with you, and I assume their names are Murtogg and Mullroy?"

Chesed looked confused. "Yes, but –"

"Murtogg, Mullroy, please come in here." Norrington called. The door opened and the two Marines that Chris had previously met during the affair with Lord Malcolm entered. They both were surprised to see Chris inside their commodore's office, but he took their attention away from the woman as Norrington stated, "Admiral Mathias Chesed, I charge you with the murder of that young man. Murtogg, fetch some irons."

Murtogg darted out of the door and Mullroy raised his gun as Chesed lunged forward. "You can't arrest me!" He raged. "I'm an Admiral! I outweigh you in rank!"

Norrington's smile stayed in place. "That may be true, but I think you would agree that no one is above the law." Chris marveled at the jewels her brother possessed. Murtogg returned and with a nod from Norrington, he cuffed the irons around Chesed's wrists. "Take him to the brig and put him in a cell, a strong one without a window. Put double watches on him of _our_ men, and see that any of his men are taken off watch." Norrington paused for a second and said, "And after you've done that, please escort Mr. and Mr. Turner to their home. I'm sure Mrs. Turner is very worried."

"Aye sir." Mullroy said.

"I am going to get you for this, Norrington." Chesed said through clenched teeth. He was all but seething with rage.

Norrington looked squarely into Chesed's face. "I rather doubt it. Enjoy your time remaining as admiral, Admiral." And with that, Mullroy and Murtogg pulled Chesed from the room.

As soon as the door closed and their steps had faded away, Chris brought herself from behind the desk and, unable to contain herself, threw her arms around her brother and hugged him. "Jamie, you were **BRILLIANT**!" She crowed. At that moment, Jack slowly opened the door to the sleeping quarters and poked his head out.

"Jamie?" Will asked, arching an eyebrow. Chris released her brother and the two siblings let out little coughs and looked discomfited.

"Is that the same thing as 'Thimble?'?" Jack asked, swinging the door open the rest of the way.

"Don't say another word, Sparrow." Chris warned.

With a sensible man back in charge of Port Royale, Will and Bootstrap returned to their home that night. Chris and Jack were not able to witness their homecoming, but Chris was certain it was that Elizabeth and the children were more than overjoyed to have their husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather back. Norrington sent orders for the blockade to disperse and all of Chesed's men were ordered to stay in the barracks until further notice. With Chesed's mess relatively cleaned up, the commodore turned his attention to more pressing matters.

Athos received medical attention from a real doctor (without any pirates or Robins present) and the doctor pronounced that he needed plenty of rest and fluids and that he should be fine. With the help of some smelling salts, Athos was able to come to and was more than a bit shocked to find that he no longer possessed his right leg below the knee. When the doctor left, Anamaria entered from Norrington's sleeping quarters and crossed to Athos as Cotton, Chris, Jack, and Cotton's Parrot watched.

"Athos, are you alright?" Anamaria asked, cupping his face with both hands.

Athos looked down. "I suppose…"

"What?" Anamaria asked.

"It's just…"

"What?"

Athos looked up at her with tears in his eyes. "Can ye love a man with one leg?"

Anamaria responded by slugging him hard in the shoulder. As he cringed in pain, she exclaimed "What a stupid, stupid question!" The pair both dissolved into tears and Norrington, Robins, and the pirates went up onto the empty ramparts to give the two some privacy.

"Commodore, theoretically speaking…" Jack began, "If I brought the _Pearl_ into the harbor, would she theoretically be safe long enough for myself and me crew to board it?"

"Orders are to blow pirate vessels out of the water on sight." Norrington replied. "However, it is rather dark…"

Jack grinned. "Aye. It is." He tapped his chin in thought. "Might ye have some horses –?"

"Sparrow, I am a commodore, not a livery stable." Norrington sighed.

"We'll procure some another way, then." Jack bowed and said, "Thank ye for the hospitality, commodore, but I'd best get the Mrs. home."

Chris rolled her eyes. "If ye're going to bring the _Pearl_ into harbor, I'll stay here and keep an eye on Athos and Anamaria."

"Oh, I see, ye just don't want to enjoy that hike back!" Jack accused, pointing at her.

"…Partially." Chris admitted. Now that there was no threat of Chesed or of her accidentally killing Athos, she was feeling rather giddy. In the back of her mind she wondered where Marak was, but she wasn't too concerned.

Jack shook his head. "Fine. We'll be back." He turned back to Norrington. "I'd tell ye not to try any funny business… But I have faith in Chris to beat the ever-living piss out of ye if ye do. Ta!" With that, Jack turned about and he, Cotton, and Robins headed inside to leave through the hole in the armory wall.

Norrington shook his head and turned to look over the ramparts and into the darkness of the harbor below. It was a moonless night, very opportune circumstances for one trying to sneak into port. Chris joined him leaning on the battlements and Norrington eventually asked, "What do you see in him?" He looked to Chris and she looked back. She was silent for a moment or two before speaking.

"His imperfections." She replied. "I love them."

Norrington rolled his eyes. "You sounded almost like the Bard or Marlowe there, Christiana."

"Yes, well… I can't help it if love makes me sound like a right idiot, can I?" Chris replied, laughing.

Norrington's expression softened. "So you do love him?"

Chris nodded. "Of course, why else would I marry him?"

Norrington shrugged. "I just thought… Maybe it was an opportunity. I mean, married to the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow –"

"Never call Jack that to his face, ye'll never live it down." Chris said. She and Norrington chuckled and fell silent. Chris suddenly realized that, though she and her brother hadn't spent a good deal of time together in the better part of a decade, and though they were in opposite professions, she and Norrington were acting as though they had never been at odds with one another. She figured Norrington was thinking the same when he spoke his next words.

"What happened to us, Christiana?" He asked. "We went from being best of friends to – Well, I remember you kicking me in a rather tender spot last time you and I encountered each other in Port Royale –"

"I seem to remember apologizing right before I did it!" Chris interjected. Norrington ignored her and continued.

"And then the sinking of the _Dauntless_ and now this – We can be at each other's throats, but then it's as though we're both back home, but grown up."

Chris shrugged. "I don't know." She said. "I don't think most people think we're supposed to… be brother and sister. You're a commodore in the Royal Navy, which isn't the kindest towards pirates, and I just happen to be a pirate."

"Why?" Norrington asked.

"If I remember correctly, the Royal Navy doesn't like pirates looting English ships –" Chris began.

"No." Norrington interrupted. "Why are you a pirate? Why did you become one?" Chris was silent. Norrington turned his entire body towards his sister and leaned upon the battlements with his elbow. "You had this wonderful life laid ahead of you, Christiana." He looked utterly perplexed as he continued speaking. "You and I were going to be able to be relatively close to one another, and you never showed up. You never arrived. Do you know how worried I was, how worried mother and Lord Thomas was?"

Chris' jaw dropped as she realized that Norrington didn't know why she never arrived in Port Royale. "You don't know." She stated. "I always thought you knew, I never thought you didn't –"

"Knew what?" Norrington asked.

Chris paused before speaking. "My ship was attacked by pirates; they took me hostage." Norrington's eyebrows rose in shock. "The captain protected my virtue from his crewmembers, and when a Spanish ship attacked, I found myself defending him and saving him. He – He offered to put me off at any port, but…" Chris found herself struggling for words. "Jamie, I had never experienced freedom before. And being a pirate, what other freedom is that? Before, I had been under the reign of Bessie and Father and Mother, and all the sudden I tasted something else. I didn't have to listen to anyone else unless I chose to, and if you sign onto a ship, you're agreeing to obey orders. I never knew anything like it before." She paused and said, "I could have asked to be taken to Port Royale. I could have. But, obviously, Lord Malcolm wasn't as great a man as Father thought."

"No…" Norrington agreed softly.

"So I think things turned out for the best, don't you?" Chris asked in earnest. Norrington considered what she said.

"…I suppose so." He finally admitted. He looked back to the darkness and asked, "I don't see what being a pirate has to do with being here in Port Royale now, though."

"Elizabeth, Will, and Bootstrap are our friends. One thing I've noticed is that pirates take care of their friends. And even if they don't, I do." Chris replied.

"You said something earlier about people not expecting us to be brother and sister." Norrington said after a pause. "I can understand. But," He looked back to his little sister and said, "Even if we're not supposed to, I would hope that we could at the very least be friends."

Chris looked to her brother and smiled softly. "Always, Jamie."

Norrington mirrored her smile. "Thank you, Thimble."

oOo

Run your car off the side of the road  
Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere  
Or get yourself in a bind lose the shirt off your back  
Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare

This is where the rubber meets the road  
This is where the cream is gonna rise  
This is what you really didn't know  
This is where the truth don't lie

You find out who your friends are  
Somebody's gonna drop everything  
Run out and crank up their car  
Hit the gas, get there fast  
Never stop to think "What's in it for me?" or "It's way too far"  
They just show on up with their big old heart  
You find out who your friends are

Everybody wants to slap your back  
Wants to shake your hand  
When you're up on top of that mountain  
But let one of those rocks give way then you slide back down look up  
And see who's around then

This ain't where the road comes to an end  
This ain't where the bandwagon stops  
This is just one of those times when  
A lot of folks jump off

You find out who your friends are  
Somebody's gonna drop everything  
Run out and crank up their car  
Hit the gas, get there fast  
Never stop to think "What's in it for me?" or "It's way too far"  
They just show on up with their big old heart  
You find out who your friends are

When the water's high  
When the weather's not so fair  
When the well runs dry  
Who's gonna be there?

You find out who your friends are  
Somebody's gonna drop everything  
Run out and crank up their car  
Hit the gas, get there fast  
Never stop to think "What's in it for me?" or "It's way too far"  
They just show on up with their big old heart  
You find out who your friends are

You find out who your friends are  
Yeah, Yeah  
You find out who your friends are

Run your car off the side of the road  
Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere  
Well man, I've been there  
Or get yourself in a bind lose the shirt off your back  
Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare  
Man, I've been there  
Man I've been there…


	18. Howard, Jocelyn, and Jonah !

**Chapter Eighteen  
Howard, Jocelyn, and Jonah**

The merchant ship was finished. Smoke rose from the gun ports, and finally, as the _Black Pearl_ neared the ship; the merchant raised her colors in defeat. Marty had spied the ship earlier that morning, and after the _Pearl_ gave chase for a few hours, the merchant ship decided to turn and fight. The other ship was larger than the _Pearl_, and so Jack used this to his advantage. The _Black Pearl_ had whipped around the _Amber Glory_ and peppered her continuously with cannon fire. When the damage grew too great, the ship finally gave up.

Jack threw a triumphant smile at his crew as they neared the _Amber Glory_ and grappling hooks were thrown over the side to secure the two ships together. "Mrs. Sparrow, after you!" Chris gave Jack a, "Really?" look before the plank was lowered between the two ships. She and her boarding party sprang across to the other ship, brandishing their weapons and yelling war cries. The captain of the _Amber Glory_ seemed alarmed and offended that the boarding party was led by a woman, but when Jack boarded, he seemed to relax a smidge.

The captain offered his sword in defeat, which Jack accepted. "Take what you must." He said, his shoulders slumped.

"Right gentlemanly of you, mate." Jack said, grinning at the man. "Because of your honor and valor, we will not take the ship as a prize, but we'll help ourselves to your cargo. You understand, of course."

The captain did not look like he enjoyed this patronization, but the prospect of keeping his ship, though relieved of any cargo, was better than nothing. "Thank you." He said through gritted teeth.

Jack turned to Gibbs and Chris. "Mr. Gibbs, please escort the captain to his cabin and inquire as to the cargo aboard and its value. Chris, search the cabins for passengers and make your best judgment about their welfare." Jack grinned and then turned to his crew. "The rest of ye, to me! Let's see what's in her guts!"

Chris headed into the forecastle with the rest of the crew but broke off from them and headed to the corridor lined with cabin doors. She startled several already alarmed passengers and, depending on whether or not they looked like they were well off, or whether or not they had haughty attitudes, Chris ransacked their belongings before leaving them. She swung open the door of the last cabin and found no one inside. There was a bed that had been slept in, a basin full of soapy water, a table with a few books upon it, and several chests, but other than that there was nothing. She decided to see what she could find in those chests.

Chris crossed to one of the chests, leaving the door open. As she undid the latch, she heard the door creak. Before she could turn to see why, she was bashed over the head with what felt like a giant fist. She fell upon the chest and immediately realized that whoever inhabited the cabin must have been hiding in the space between the door and the wall. _Stupid!_ It was such a green mistake for Chris to make, but she didn't have time to beat herself up about it. Though spots were in front of her eyes, she ignored them and dropped to the floor just as two joined fists came crashing down upon the wood. Now she was between the chest and the person's legs, which was not exactly the most opportune of positions.

Chris reached forward, wrapping her arms around the person's knees and sending them tumbling backward. As soon as they hit the floor, Chris was up with her knees on the person's chest and her pistol at his temple. As she looked into the person's face, her heart stopped beating. The person was a man, and Chris knew him. He had aged since she last saw him, of course, but even with the graying hair and added wrinkles, she recognized the man she now kneeled upon as her father, Lord Howard Thomas.

"Do it." He growled. His green eyes were narrowed with such malice that Chris' stomach actually shivered with fear. "Do it!"

Chris was speechless. She had no idea what to say to him at all. At that moment she heard, "Chris! Oh, Chris!" from the companionway. She swallowed hard and began to climb off of her father, her pistol still trained on him. "_Christiana_, I'm not going to ask for ye again!" Chris' father looked at her and his lips parted in surprise. Chris prayed that he wouldn't recognize her. What would he think? Would he be ashamed? Her prayers went unanswered.

"Christiana?" He asked. Chris' mouth opened and no words came out. What could she say? Her hand shook and her father's brow furrowed. "You can't be my daughter." Lord Thomas' lips twisted into a snarl. "**My** daughter would never do such a thing as become a pirate."

Chris swallowed hard. "I'm sure your daughter would have never wanted to be sent halfway across the world to a husband she didn't know either." She replied. She immediately knew that she had gone too far, as Lord Thomas' eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in malice.

"Are you going to rob me then? Do it. Steal my rightful belongings, like the little thief you are?" Chris felt like something inside of her was dying as her father spoke. He had never treated her so harshly before, or talked to her with such words, but perhaps he still doubted that it was her. That hope was dashed as he continued. "Take what you want to me and seal my daughter's fate as being dead to me."

Chris' lip trembled, despite her best attempts at trying to hold herself together. "You sold me like a pound of sugar to Lord Malcolm!" If he had any doubts about her being his daughter before, they were now gone. "I was still a child, how could you do that to me?"

Lord Thomas went to answer just as Jack entered, but seeing the infamous pirate captain, the man kept his mouth shut. Jack looked at his pistol-holding wife and the man upon the floor and arched an eyebrow. "Am I interrupting something, love?"

"So it's a pirate's whore, is it?" Lord Thomas growled under his breath. His daughter felt as though he had plunged a dagger into her heart and twisted. She did her best to keep herself collected.

Chris looked at Jack and shook her head. "You take care of him." She commanded. She handed her pistol to Jack and fled from the cabin without a second look. As soon as she was in the companionway and away from the room and any prying eyes, she grabbed onto a beam and placed her fist to her chest as she thought of the words spoken to her by her father. She had always loved him so dearly, so very dearly. Lord Thomas had been second only to Jamie in her heart as she grew up. Chris knew that he had only wanted the best for her when he arranged her marriage to Lord Malcolm, but still, look how it had panned out. Lord Malcolm had turned out to be engaging in piracy as well, and indeed, Jack and his crew were noble, honorable pirates… Or as honorable as pirates could be. She felt a tightness in her chest and tried to ignore it and swallow any tears as she headed below to help the crew unload the cargo.

Later, as the cargo was winched aboard the _Black Pearl_ and the pirates were preparing to cast off from the side of the _Amber Glory_, Jack came up to Chris just as she was about to climb into the top. "Now just was that all about back in the cabin, love?" Jack asked.

Chris scowled as Loki materialized from below decks and scampered up her pant leg, shirt, and to her shoulder. "That man was my father." Chris said, reaching up to scratch her monkey's chin. She hadn't paid much attention to him lately, and she felt a bit of guilt added upon her shaken nerves now.

"Yer dad, really?" Jack asked, cocking his head to the side. He tapped his chin in thought. "Hmm…"

"Why are you 'Hmm-ing'?" Chris asked, her eyebrow's furrowed in suspicion. Loki let out a low coo.

"I reckon I didn't make too good of a first impression, what with ransacking his cabin and then punching his lights out when he got a bit riled up." Chris lips parted in surprise and Jack smiled. "Don't worry, love, I tucked him in before I left nice and snug! When he wakes up, he just has to ask for assistance being untied and he'll be right as rain!" Chris closed her eyes and winced. "What?" The quartermaster simply shook her head, opened her eyes, and began climbing up the nearest line. "It could have been a lot worse!" Jack called after her. "At least I didn't take his clothes and dunk him from the yardarm!"

A few days later, the _Black Pearl_ docked in a pirate port named Port Freedom to sell the cargo from the _Amber Glory_. All save for a few were given shore leave after the cargo had been sold, and Chris was resolved to go to the nearest tavern that night and drink their entire supply of whiskey. Since the encounter with her father, she had been experiencing odd dreams that kept her up during the night, and she hoped that if she drank enough, maybe they would go away. She went to the tavern named the Parrot's Eye with no other soul but Loki; Jack said he had some other business to look into. And the Parrot's Eye had no whiskey, but the barkeep insisted a special drink of theirs called "Parrot's Blood" would do the trick, and so Chris decided to try it. It had a funny aftertaste and an almost oily consistency, but she continued drinking nonetheless. After her fourth round, Jack suddenly popped into the tavern with a look of pure excitement upon his face.

"Chris, Chris, Chris!" Jack plowed through the crowd of the tavern and when he reached Chris, he knocked over her drink when he grabbed her arm. Loki screeched in dismay as Jack pulled Chris from her chair, saying, "Chris, the most 'mazing thing happened, I can't believe it, ye're gonna love it, come with me!"

"'ey 'ey 'ey!" Chris objected, digging her heels into the floorboards. This accomplished nothing, and people were starting to stare. "Sparrow, what –?"

"No time! Loki, ye mangy git, get on your master!" Loki did his best to scowl at Jack but nonetheless the little monkey leaped onto Chris' shoulder. With Loki and Chris secured, Jack drug them from the tavern and into the streets.

"What? What the bloody – Jack, I was drinkin', it wasn't good, but you spilled it and –" Chris began blabbering. Her stomach suddenly felt sick. Maybe she shouldn't have had a fourth round…

"I'll show you, just be patient!" Jack was leading Chris up a hill away from the harbor. When he reached the top, Chris beheld a building that appeared to be a boarding house or inn. The windows cast light out into the night and Chris saw several people in the dim light. Sitting on the step outside was a woman with black hair and tanned skin. Sitting next to her was a pale young boy with brown hair, a dark skinned girl with a length of bright cloth tied around her head, another girl with pale skin and reddish brown hair, and a young Asian boy with short black hair and no shirt. Chris leered at them as the woman stood.

Jack swept his arm towards the woman in presentation. "Chris, this is Jocelyn, me sister! She – She was trading inside the store and we ran into each other and – Joccy, this is me wife, the one I've been tellin' ye about, Chris! Chris, Jocelyn. Jocelyn, Chris. Isn't this great!" Jack looked beyond ecstatic as he spoke.

Chris tried not to leer so much at Jocelyn with this bit of information, but she wasn't feeling well at all. She really regretted having the fourth round of Parrot's Blood now that she was meeting Jack's sister. "Nice to meet you." Her tongue tripped over her words and she felt like hitting herself. "Sorry if I keep giving ye looks and smell a bit, but I think I'm drunk." As if to confirm her words, a small belch escaped her lips.

"Pleased to meet you." Jocelyn said, bobbing slightly. The dark skinned girl looked at Chris, who wavered unsteadily, and the girl tugged on Jocelyn's sleeve. Jocelyn picked her up and rested the child upon her hip. "You didn't go to the Parrot's Eye, did you?"

"Um, aye, that was it." Chris replied. Jack's ecstasy seemed to be dulling as the conversation continued.

Jocelyn's face darkened. "Don't tell me you drank the Parrot's Blood."

"...Why?" Chris asked, hiccupping. Loki chirped with worry and the children looked at him, smiles widening on their faces.

"It does have alcohol in it, but it's actually made with parrot blood." Jocelyn said. Jack looked at Chris with revulsion clearly written on his face. "And I don't think that humans are supposed to drink blood."

Chris' eye twitched involuntarily and her stomach made a funny sound. "That would explain the extremely appealing urge to throw up." And that is exactly what Chris did. The children crowded around Jocelyn and watched as Chris doubled over and emptied her stomach at Jocelyn's feet. Loki shrieked and bolted from her shoulders, disappearing into the dark.

"We should get you inside." Jocelyn said, backing away from the growing pool of vomit.

"But then ye'll have to clean up her sick." Jack replied. Jocelyn looked at her brother and he was like, "Right. Can ye walk, Chris?" Chris replied by convulsing once more as projectile vomit spewed from her mouth. "I suppose not." Jack replied.

After Chris stopped vomiting Jack picked her up in his arms like a giant baby and followed Jocelyn up the stairs and into the inn. Chris' stomach still felt sick, but she didn't feel like she was going to vomit all over her husband and that must have been an improvement. As Jocelyn held the door open, she instructed, "Careful with her, Jack. Watch her head."

"I never understood that expression. Ye watch their head, but that doesn't stop it from hittin' somethin'." Indeed, Jack looked at Chris' head just as it hit the doorframe. She moaned and curled up into his shoulder. "See?" Jack asked, turning sideways and entering the door without any other trouble. They were in the main room of the inn which held a counter into a back room, a large fireplace, and a long table that could seat a dozen people. Several rude toys were littered on the floor, and Jack stepped over them gingerly.

"Jack, if I didn't see three of ye and ye weren't holdin' me, I'd kick ye in the jewels." Chris moaned from his shoulder. Jocelyn let out a sigh as Jack laid Chris on the table. The children followed them in and their mother closed the door behind them.

She turned to Jack and said, "Don't leave her there, Jack. I have plenty of empty rooms; she can sleep it off in one of them while we catch up."

"Alright." Jack followed Jocelyn through a doorway near the one behind the counter and into a long hallway that ran horizontally. Darkened doorways led into the rooms of the inn, and Jocelyn opened the door of the one nearest the front room. "I need to put the little ones to bed anyway. I'll meet you back in the front room."

"Thanks, Joccy." Jack smiled at his sister and entered the room, making sure not to bump Chris on the doorframe this time. The room contained a large bed with a threadbare quilt atop of it. Other than that there was a stand with a basin and an empty pitcher of water, and that was all. "Gonna set ye down real quick so I can pull the quilt back, alright Chris?" Jack asked.

Chris didn't know if it was the effects of the Parrot's Blood or her body expelling everything she had eaten in the past day, but she was feeling very shaky and tired. She simply nodded while Jack let her lower half rest on the bed while he pulled the quilt back on the other side. Once the quilt was pulled back, Jack plucked Chris back up and into his arms and walked to the other side, laying her down and pulling the quilt onto her. "Do ye need anything, love?" Jack asked, brushing hair from her face.

"Uh-uh." Chris pulled the quilt around herself tighter. "Ye know, sometimes ye can be a right gent, Jack."

Jack laughed. "Me mother would be proud." He thumbed her cheek and said, "Now go ahead and rest up. We'll stay 'ere until the blood's passed through ye." Chris smiled sleepily and then rolled over and shut her eyes. Jack kissed the hair above her ear before returning to the front room of the inn. Jocelyn was sitting at the head of the table with a jug and two wooden cups in front of her.

"Is she feeling better?" Jocelyn asked, uncorking the jug.

"I think she just needs to get it out of her system." Jack replied, pulling out a chair and sitting down. He watched as Jocelyn poured some golden liquid into each mug and scooted one to him, keeping the other for himself. "Rum?" He asked hopefully.

"Just drink it." Jocelyn replied, picking up her cup.

Jack raised the cup to his lips and took a sip, tasting apple cider. He smacked his lips. "It'd be better hard."

"I see the years haven't changed you." Jocelyn said, smiling.

"I'm like a pinnacle, love." Jack replied, smiling. "Speaking of which, whatever happened to Jonah? Weren't ye two going to get married?"

Jocelyn placed both hands around her cup and looked down into it. "He's not around anymore."

Jack didn't press the issue. He had never really liked Jocelyn's beau Jonah in the years past. He had not only found the man a poor sailor, but also found that he liked being in control, even when he was not in a position to do so. "So then… whose runts are those?" He asked, jerking his head in the direction of the rooms.

Jocelyn set her cup down and punched Jack's arm. "They are not 'runts.'" She objected, frowning.

"Forgive me. Ah… Whose delightful little angels are they?" Jack asked, a smile tugging at his lips.

"Better." Jocelyn replied and then weighed how to answer the question. "They're mine. They all haven't come from me, obviously, but they're mine." She took another sip of cider.

Jack arched an eyebrow. "And how did they come to be yours?"

Jocelyn swilled her cider around in her cup. "Shang, the little boy from the east, he was going to be used to work in a mine before I took him in. Adanya was going to be sent up to the colonies to be sold as a slave. Rachel's parents died of cholera. And Geoff, well, he's mine." She took a sip. "After I had Geoff and I saw that there were other children that needed help, I couldn't just stand here and not do anything. And besides, they help with the inn when times are good and when they're not…" She looked around the empty inn, causing Jack to do the same before she said, "They keep me from being lonely."

Jack nodded. "Are ye doing well financially?" His tone was serious and his brow was furrowed.

"I'd rather not talk about that." Jocelyn replied tartly.

Jack took another sip of apple cider and let it sit in his mouth for a moment before swallowing and speaking. "Ye seen Pop lately?"

Jocelyn shook her head. "Haven't the time or the money. You?" Jack shook his head as well. "Well, it's not really easy when he lives in a place that's almost impossible to navigate to safely."

"Aye. He's seemed to take a shine to it since mum passed." Jack finished his cider and said, "Maybe you, me, Chris, and the kiddies could go for a visit someday soon. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?"

Jocelyn hesitated in her answer. "Maybe." She looked back at her cider. "It's almost the busy season for the inn; we'll have to see about that."

Jack had a feeling that there was something Jocelyn wasn't telling him, but he didn't want to press the issue. "Well…" He reached into the inside of his vest and pulled out three shillings. "Will this do for a room for the night?"

Jocelyn's lips parted in surprise. "Jack, you're my brother –"

"Aye, but I also just dragged me vomiting wife into yer inn, so allow me to pay for whatever sick ye may have to clean up."

Jocelyn stared at the three shillings before picking them up. She rose and walked to the counter, pulling out a drawer. "I'll just put these in here for you until you leave tomorrow. Safe as houses."

"Jocelyn –" Jack began.

Jocelyn turned back to her brother, and he could tell by the look on her face that she was just barely containing tears. "Jack, I do not need your help. I'm a grown woman and I run a business and I don't need my big brother to swoop in and save me, you understand?"

Jack nodded. "Aye."

Jocelyn took up the mug and her cup from the table. "I'm heading to bed. Blow out the lanterns before you go to sleep, would you?" Without waiting for an answer, Jocelyn continued into the hallway leading to the rooms and Jack was left alone. His brow furrowed in thought as he stood and crossed to the lanterns, opening their doors and blowing the flame inside out. He was worried about Jocelyn. Not only did it seem that her inn wasn't doing well, but she had four little mouths to feed besides her own. Even though she said she didn't need help, Jack was determined to do something to help her; he just needed to figure out how to do it in a way she wouldn't suspect.

It was with these thoughts that he walked back to the room in which Chris slept and climbed into bed beside her. If nothing else, he could just give every member of the crew money enough to spend the night… And with that thought, he drifted to sleep.

A few hours before the dawn, Chris awoke feeling the vomit rising in her throat. She swung herself out of bed and crossed to the lone window in the room. She unlatched it and swung it open just in time to stick her head out of the window and empty the contents of her stomach onto the side of the inn and the ground below. Her stomach heaved a few more times and she was done. Her legs shook as she pulled her head back inside and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She returned to the bed and was about to climb back in and get cozy next to Jack when she heard a drunken male voice wafting from the front room of the inn.

"This stew isn't worth slopping pigs, and you have the gall to serve it to _me_ –!" There was an indistinct response and then a clatter. "Don't you give me that piss-poor excuse! I gave you three pounds last time I was here! Where'd it go?"

Chris ducked into the hallway and staggered down the hall, her stomach bubbling in objection to the speed of her movement. She peeked around the corner into the front room and saw that a man was sitting at the table. His black hair was long, but only reached down to the bottom lobe of his ears. He had a square jaw and dark eyes. He was wearing sailor garb and drinking from a bottle.

Jocelyn was bent over on the floor, cleaning up a wooden bowl and the stew that it had once held. "That was months ago, I can't help it that the children need to eat –"

"Don't give me that!" The man roared. He looked to the doorframe just after Chris pulled her head back in the hallway. She gagged as her stomach bubbled again, and though she felt awful, she acknowledged that she needed to help her sister-in-law, especially after her rather poor introduction earlier. She however felt the vomit rising on her throat and knew the only thing she could honestly do successfully to the man was probably throw up on him. She returned to the room and shook Jack awake.

"Chris, what?" He asked groggily, rubbing his face lazily.

"There's a guy in the front room being an ass to Jocelyn." She whispered rather loudly. She then considered what she had seen. "Or he's just grumpy because he spilled his stew…"

Jack leered at Chris with an arched eyebrow. "Alright…" He swung himself out of bed and plunked his hat on his head and strapped his effects about his waist. He stood and headed to the front room, Chris behind him and fighting to keep the rising bile in her throat down. Upon entering the front room, Chris saw that the man was still sitting at the table and Jocelyn was behind the counter. When she saw Chris and Jack enter, her lips parted and her eyes widened. She looked from the man back to Jack and then back to the man as Jack spoke.

"Now, just what is goin' on here?" Jack asked, slowing his pace so that he was approaching the man with a slow swagger. Chris hung back.

"Nothing. You should go back to bed and stay out of matters that don't concern you." The man replied, leering at Jack.

"Ye don't say? Aye then, I guess I should get out of your face." Jack sort of chuckled and lurched forward to cover the few remaining steps to the man. "Guess I'm a bit too drunk to be takin' on someone like you, eh mate?" He chuckled again before pulling back his arm and slugging the man across the face. The man went sprawling backwards in his chair, hitting the floor hard. The sound of splintering wood came from the chair and the back broke off and the man tumbled from the chair's embrace. Surprise and anger riddled the man's face as Jack sauntered over to him and planted a foot on his chest. As he spoke, he leaned his weight onto him. "Now, how 'bout ye apologize to your lovely hostess and get the Hell out of here?"

The man growled and spat on Jack's boot. Jack switched feet and wiped the saliva onto the man's shirt. "She's my wife!" The man growled. "And I'm the only thing keeping her and the bastards she collects afloat!"

Jack's brow furrowed and his face darkened. "Wife?" He echoed, looking to Jocelyn. Jocelyn's mouth moved, but no words came out. Jack looked back down to the man under his boot.

"Don't realize me, Jackhole?" The man asked, laughing. "It's Jonah. Why don't you take your boot off my chest and give your brother-in-law a proper Hello?"

Jack's jaw slackened and he stared down at the man for a few seconds before removing his boot. He offered his hand to Jonah, and once he was on his feet, Jack punched him again and sent him to the floor and second time, but Jack's fists did not stop pummeling him.

"Jack!" His sister and wife cried his name at the same time and both crossed to him. Jocelyn tried to pull Jack off from Jonah, but the sudden movement made Chris' stomach queasy. She grabbed the empty stew bowl from where it sat on the table and became sick in it.

Jocelyn was finally able to pull her brother from the man who called himself her husband by putting all her weight into her posterior. They both fell to the floor and Jonah propped himself up on his elbows to look at them both. His face was red and his eyes were already starting to swell from where Jack's fists had landed, but he laughed. "I see you haven't lost your attitude, Jackhole."

"Don't you dare call me that, you bastard!" Jack roared, lunging forward once more (Jocelyn's rear slid on the floor as she tried to hold him back). "Ye have no right to be here, or to be speaking to Jocelyn at all, ye bleedin' scallywag!"

"Oh yes. Where have you been all this time? Out making the world a better place?" Jonah asked, a sardonic glint in his eyes.

"I should rip out yer tongue and feed it to ye!" Jack roared, making another lunge. Jocelyn couldn't contain him, and this time, he threw himself on top of Jonah, but the other man was ready for the pirate captain. "Go to Hell, Jonah!" The two wrestled for a few moments until Jonah was able to get the upper hand and grab Jack by the throat.

He used the hold to pin Jack to the floor. Jocelyn cried for Jonah to stop as he bent to hiss in Jack's face, "After you."

Chris finished being sick in the stew bowl. She realized she couldn't be of much use in physical strength, but she could do one thing. She slid across the floor, pulled herself to her feet as Jack gasped for breath and plopped the bowl and its contents onto the top of Jonah's skull. "Enjoy your stew, ye rat eating, crow-footed barnacle!" Chris topped this off by gagging once more and letting out a burp.

The vomit dripped into Jonah's eyes, and as his hand flew up to wipe it away, Jack kicked the man off of him and scrambled to his feet. He postured his body, ready to fight as Jonah started laughing hoarsely, flicking the sick from his fingers. "A wench! A wench saves the neck of Jackhole Sparrow!" He knocked the bowl off of his head, and using his vest, wiped his head as clean as possible. "Are you sweet on her, Jackhole, or is she just a good romp in the hay?" He turned to survey Chris. "Maybe after I'm done here, she should receive my special attention."

As Jonah was looking at Chris, Jack crossed to the man and took a fistful of his filthy hair, yanking his head back. He hissed into his face, "That wench is my wife. And I will treat her better than you treated any woman, especially my sister." With that, Jack released his head and planted a kick square in the man's spine. Jonah sprawled forward onto the floor and Jack said in a low, dangerous voice, "Get out."

Jonah laughed and pulled himself to his feet. He turned to Jocelyn, Jack, and Chris and said, "Of course, Jackhole. Of course. I wouldn't want to intrude on this lovely family reunion." Jonah turned specifically to Jocelyn. She shifted uncomfortably as he spoke. "Alright. Jocelyn, I don't think you'll be seeing me for a while. I'll just take up a room at the Parrot's Eye from now on." And with that, Jonah left the inn with as much dignity as he could muster.

Jack was practically seething once the door closed. His body seemed to be vibrating with anger, and his jaw was clenched so tight, Chris thought his teeth may break. She was about to say something to him to try and comfort him or do something other than vomit, but Jocelyn spoke first.

"Jack." Tears began to run from Jocelyn's eyes and her shoulders hunched in despair. "Jack, you just made things worse for me." The pirate turned to face his sister, and she swallowed hard. "Now get out. Just please, please get out."

"Joccy..." Jack said. Immediately, his anger left him and his brow furrowed in worry.

"Jack, he was my main source of income. I have no idea how we'll get by now. Just please, please get out." Jocelyn turned to go behind the counter.

"Joccy..."

"Get out!" Jocelyn's face fell and she clapped a hand to her lips. A muffled sob escaped her and she sniffed hard before wiping her eyes. "Just leave." With that, she vanished into the doorway behind the counter and did not reappear.

Jack, his face full of more pain than Chris thought possible to wear upon a person's visage, stared after his sister, and then turned to leave the inn. Chris followed. Any attempt to talk to him failed as he strode down towards the harbor, and when Chris got sick once or twice more, Jack did not wait for her. Loki, however, emerged from the bushes, narrowly missing being doused in a stream of vomit as he scrambled up Chris' pant leg. "Loki, ye little devil…" Chris said, scratching his chin before continuing to pursue Jack.

She followed him to the _Black Pearl_ and up into the captain's cabin. Upon entering, Jack immediately grabbed the nearest bottle of drink, uncorked it, and drank as much as he could in three gulps, finishing it. With that bottle gone, he threw it haphazardly over his shoulder and grabbed another one. The bottle did not shatter, but it fell with a hollow clunk onto the floor. After Jack uncorked his new bottle, he took sips from it and scratched his head.

"Jack…" Chris began cautiously, "Are ye alright?"

"No, Chris. No, I'm not alright." Jack paced the cabin like a caged animal. Loki let out a low warble. "My sister, my baby sis is living in near poverty with four little ones. She married that bastard Jonah, and he's been treatin' her and most likely the kids poorly for who knows how long…" Jack corked his bottle and said, "I think it's time we go see me dad."

Chris arched an eyebrow. "Alright..." She hadn't expected this. "Er… When are we leavin'?"

"After the sunrise." Jack tapped a finger upon his bottle. "I'm thinkin' we swing by Tortuga and give everyone shore leave, and then we'll go and see me dad together. But not without Jocelyn." He set the bottle down on his desk and crossed to the cabin door. "Ye coming?"

Chris furrowed her brow but followed. The sun was beginning to rise, and Chris wasn't exactly sure just what Jack meant to do as they began heading back up towards the in. "What's yer plan?" Chris asked as they approached the inn.

"I know Jocelyn's not goin' to want to see me nor listen to anythin' I want to say." Jack said. "But I'm pretty sure I can get her out one way or another." He looked to Chris. "Ye done heavin' up yer guts?" He asked.

"I can't make any guarantees." Chris replied, "But I don't think I have anything else in me stomach."

Jack nodded. "If I get Jocelyn, ye think ye can get the kiddies?"

"I have a monkey, don't I?" Chris responded. Jack nodded, looking to Loki.

"Remember, there's four of 'em. Just make sure ye have four and make sure ye get 'em back to the _Pearl_." With that, the pair had arrived back at the inn. "I'll go in first and get Jocelyn. It's goin' to take me a bit of time to get her down to the _Pearl_, so I suggest ye stay behind and wait for the kiddies to wake up and then come down, savvy?" Chris nodded. "Alright." With that, Jack entered the inn and Chris followed behind him. She hung back in the main room as Jack went back into the hallway. She heard a door open, followed by a moment or two of silence, and some indistinct talking. Then there was a scuffle, and finally, Jack lurched into the room with Jocelyn thrown over his back like a sack of flour.

"Jack, you set me down right this very instant –!" Jocelyn commanded, pounding her fists on Jack's back as he paused at the closed front door.

"A little help here, love?" Jack grunted. Chris walked forward and opened the door, allowing Jack to carry Jocelyn through it. Unlike with Chris the previous night, he managed not to hit Jocelyn's head on the frame. "See you at the _Pearl_." He called and with that he and his struggling sister set off down towards the harbor.

Chris closed the door and turned to see that the scuffle had awoken the four children. They peeked around the corner at her, eyes wide, and the children and Chris stared at each other for a few seconds before the boy from the east, who seemed to be the oldest, came out and held his arms open as though he was protecting his other siblings. Chris looked to Loki and murmured, "Help me here, mate," before setting him on the floor. "I'm your Auntie Chris." She said as kindly as she could, "And this is Loki."

For the first time in quite a while, Loki actually cooperated with what Chris wished. He loped forward a few steps and let out a chitter, cocking his head to the side. He rubbed his face a few times and then loped to the boy's feet. He then looked up at the boy with the widest pair of eyes Chris ever did see and let out a coo. That did it. The children ran forward and hunched down to pet the small monkey. "Where's Mama?" The eldest boy asked, tearing his eyes from the monkey to look at Chris.

"She's with Uncle Jack." Chris replied. "We're going to go on a boat ride." She knew that if Jack ever heard her refer to the _Pearl_ as a boat that their relationship would end forever, but she thought that a boat ride would be within the children's grasp of understanding. "So after ye're done playing with Loki, get your things, and we'll go meet her."

"We don't have anything." The dark girl said. She was by far the youngest and had large brown eyes that made Chris' heart melt.

Chris smiled kindly. "Then whenever ye're ready, we'll go."

Once it was established that, yes, they could carry Loki and pass him between each other on the walk, Chris and the children left the inn and walked down to the harbor slowly but steadily. When they arrived, the sun was fully in the sky and all of the crew was aboard the _Pearl_. "There ye are, Chris!" Gibbs called once Chris arrived. "Ye sure did take yer sweet time getting' here."

"I can't help it that my companions have short legs!" Chris replied, ushering the children up the gangplank. "Where's Jack?"

Gibbs hesitated. "Down in your old cabin, tryin' to keep the lioness at bay." He looked at the children. "I'm guessin' these are the cubs?"

"Aye." Chris replied just as she and the children stepped on deck. The gang plank was immediately brought up. "I'm guessin' orders are to sail immediately to deny anyone the pleasure of jumpin' ship?" The children were looking around in wonder at the sails and the crew as Chris and Gibbs continued speaking.

"Ye would be correct." Gibbs replied. He looked down at the children. "Would anyone like to hear some stories about pirates?" He asked, clapping his hands together.

"I would!" The younger boy crowed, and he was shortly followed by his sisters and brother.

"Don't ye need to mind the crew?" Chris asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I can do that and spin a yarn at the same time." Gibbs replied, looking hurt to think that Chris would think otherwise. "I think ye'd best get below and help make sure the lioness stays in her cage until we're out to sea."

"Aye, aye, first mate." Chris said, bowing slightly.

Gibbs rolled his eyes and shook his head before corralling the children and leading them up to the helm. "Now, what do ye kiddies know about sea turtles?"

Chris headed down to her old room and heard that, indeed, Jocelyn was none too happy with her current situation. The door rocked with impact as Chris reached for the handle and she thought better of opening it. Instead, she stood ready to shove Jocelyn back into the room if need be. _This is turning out to be a right proper family hijacking…_

"Jocelyn, stop, stop!" She heard Jack say. There was silence and then Jack said, "I just want to make sure ye and yer kids are goin' to be taken care of! Ye'll starve if ye stay back in Port Freedom, and I will not allow that to happen!"

"Jack, you don't understand!" Jocelyn replied. There was silence for a few seconds and then Jocelyn spoke again, her voice laden with tears. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. Jonah and I were supposed to be married and – and…" She sniffed loud enough for the sound to come through the door. "We were supposed to be happy. It wasn't supposed to be like this." She repeated.

"What happened, Joccy girl?" Jack asked softly.

"He began drinking. He began lying with tavern girls. But I loved him, and… I forgave him. And then he stopped coming around, especially after Geoff was born. He said he didn't like the marks on my belly." Chris could hear her crying through the door. "So he got a job on a ship and he left, only coming back every year or so and… He's not the man I married, Jack. He's not." She sniffed again. "And the way he treats the children, I can't take it…"

There was silence for a few minutes, but Chris had a feeling that Jack was comforting her. "He doesn't love you enough, Joccy. But Pop and I love you, you hear? We're going to go see dad, and we'll make sure that ye and the kids are taken care of like ye should be, alright? Ye just got to trust me. Can ye do that?" Chris didn't hear an affirmation, but Jack continued. "Alright. We just gotta give me crew some shore leave and then we'll head to Shipwreck Island, aye? Don't worry, I'm takin' care of ye now."

With that, Chris headed back above. She didn't want to be caught eavesdropping by Jack or Jocelyn, and so she climbed into the top to tend sails as the _Black Pearl_ left the harbor of Port Freedom, bound for Tortuga and then Jack's father.

oOo

A last fire will rise behind those eyes  
Black house will rock, blind boys don't lie  
Immortal fear, that voice so clear  
Through broken walls, that scream I hear

Cry, little sister - Thou shall not fall  
Come to your brother - Thou shall not die  
Unchain me, sister - Thou shall not fear  
Love is with your brother - Thou shall not kill

Blue masquerade, strangers look on  
When will they learn this loneliness?  
Temptation heat beats like a drum  
Deep in your veins, I will not lie

Little sister - Thou shall not fall  
Come to your brother - Thou shall not die  
Unchain me, sister - Thou shall not fear  
Love is with your brother - Thou shall not kill

My Shangri-La  
I can't forget  
Why you were mine  
I need you now

Cry, little sister - Thou shall not fall  
Come to your brother - Thou shall not die  
Unchain me, sister - Thou shall not fear  
Love is with your brother - Thou shall not kill


	19. A Nest of Sparrows &

**Chapter Nineteen  
A Nest of Sparrows**

"And this, Shang, is a back splice." Chris said, showing the boy the splice she just wove. The pair was up in the crow's nest with Chris functioning as lookout. After arriving in Tortuga, the crew was given their pay and shore leave for ten days while Jack, Jocelyn, Chris, and the kids sailed to a place Chris had never heard of before named "Shipwreck Island." It would take, at minimum, six to sail the _Black Pearl_, so Gibbs, Cotton, and Anamaria and Athos volunteered to come along as crew. Ragetti and Pintel opted to stay in Tortuga with Sarah; Ragetti for the company of his wife and Pintel for her cooking. Athos, since losing his leg and having to resort to walking along on a crutch, had been reassigned to the galley, a chore Chris felt he resented, but it was tradition to put those who had lost limbs into the galley. Athos had actually been on lookout that afternoon, but he begged Chris to switch with him and so she did.

And, after the kids saw not only Chris but Loki climb up in the rigging, they had begged their mother to be taught how to. Jocelyn had said no at first, but as the children continued, she relented only on the terms that they only go into the top with Chris or Jack, and only one at a time. So, as Chris climbed into the top, Shang had just so happened to be on deck and he asked his Auntie Chris if he could come with her. She agreed, and slowly but surely the two made their way into the crow's nest where Chris began teaching Shang how to splice lines to pass the time.

"What does a back splice do?" Shang asked, looking at the rope in Chris' hands. He raised a hand to scratch the scalp that laid beneath his thick black hair and once the itch was satisfied, his hand dropped back to his side.

"It keeps the rope from frayin'. If the rope frays, it's easier to break and a broken line could hurt or kill someone." Chris said. "Do you want to try?"

Shang looked hesitant, but as he reached for the line, his eyes widened. "Look Auntie Chris!" He pointed over Chris' shoulder and she followed his finger to see in the distance what appeared to be tall mountains jutting up out of the ocean in a circle. That was what Chris had been commanded to keep an eye out for. Chris felt a shiver run through her spine, for she knew now that the _Pearl_ would have to be very meticulous and careful in the sailing that would come now. The circle was the caldera of a volcano in which lay Shipwreck Island, which contained Shipwreck Cove in which lay Shipwreck City where Jack said his father lived. To get into the caldera, the _Pearl_ would have to sail through a dangerous inlet called the Devil's Throat, and it was famous for claiming several ships a year to add to the shipwrecks for which the island, cove, and city were named.

"Shang, hop on me back." Chris commanded. She turned and Shang climbed upon her. "Hold tight, alright?" Once Shang's arms were wrapped around her as tight as possible, Chris climbed over the side of the crow's nest and grabbed the line that would zip her down to the deck. As soon as she put her weight onto the rope and plummeted down, she felt Shang's arms tighten about her almost uncomfortably so. When she hit the deck, Shang's arms constricted once more, at which point Chris found difficulty in taking a breath. "You're alright, lad." She gasped. "Let… go…"

Shang obliged her and thumped to the deck. Besides looking a bit pale, he was fine. "Ye'd best make sure not to do that around Jocelyn, Chris." Jack called from the wheel.

Chris smiled up at him. "Shang here spotted the caldera, Jack."

"Where?" Jack asked.

"To the southeast, ten to fifteen knots."

Jack nodded. "Good job, Shang! Now do us a favor and go keep an eye on your mum and your brother and sisters, alright?"

"I can stay here and help." Shang said, puffing his chest out in pride. Chris looked up at Jack and gave him a sympathetic smile, but Jack had it covered.

"Ye already have, Shang me boy. But we do need someone to make sure that yer family stays in their cabin, where it's safe. Can I trust ye with that task?"

Shang snapped his legs together and saluted the captain. "Aye, Captain Jack!" With that, Shang scurried below and out of sight.

Chris looked up at her husband and shook her head. "Ye certainly could make a fine dad someday, Sparrow."

"I like the nieces and nephews because I can give them back." Jack replied. "Now get up top and keep an eye out for anything in the water as we go through the inlet.

The passage through the Devil's Throat was by no measure easy. The walls of stone on either side pressed upon the _Black Pearl_, making it nigh impossible to maneuver if an obstacle fell or floated in the ship's path. In the water below, Chris could see the ghostly sails and yardarms of ships that had wrecked in the passage over the years, and she did her best to keep a sharp eye for any spars that looked like they could potentially breach the _Pearl_'s hull.

The responsibility of sailing the ship safely, however, fell to the captain. Jack's maneuvering was impeccable, and he would only nudge the wheel slightly if it was called for. Any abrupt maneuver would send the ship crashing into the stone on either side. Finally, after what seemed ages, the _Pearl_ emerged from the Devil's Throat, and Jack immediately called for someone to relieve him, as his arms were stiff and pulsing with pain from being kept so taught for such a long time.

Inside the caldera, Chris beheld a city that looked like it had been cobbled together by the wrecks of ships. It was an awe inspiring sight to behold, and Chris personally thought that not even the King of England's palaces could be made of such intricate and complicated design. Cotton slowly edged the _Black Pearl_ into what could be construed as the city's harbor and the call for the anchor to be lowered was made. As soon as the capstan stopped spinning and was locked into place, the sails were raised, and Chris slid down to the deck and helped lower the gangplank while Jack went below to gather his sister and her children. Chris observed that Shipwreck City seemed to be empty. There was only one ship in the harbor which bore the name the _Misty Lady_, and the ship had barnacles upon its hull, entailing that it hadn't been sailed for quite some time.

"Who's ready to go ashore, then?" Jack asked, emerging from below with Jocelyn and the children trailing behind him. Loki was riding upon Rachel's shoulder and wearing a small skirt. Where the children had found it, Chris had no clue.

"Have ye been playing nicely with Loki?" Chris asked, falling into line with the children as Jack led the crew of the _Pearl_ into the city. After Jack came Jocelyn, then Chris and the children, and then the crew of the _Black Pearl _with Cotton and his parrot bringing up the rear.

"O' course." Geoffrey responded. "He was dancin' for us!"

"Captain," Gibbs asked over the young boy, "Doesn't anyone need to mind the _Pearl_?"

Jack turned, his arms outstretched. "Do ye see anyone here who might try to make off with her?" The resounding silence of Shipwreck City answered his question. Gibbs shook his head. "That's what I thought." Jack turned about and continued leading.

"Ye do realize that Loki's a boy, don't ye?" Chris continued in conversation with the children.

"Some boys wear skirts." Adanya protested. "And Loki likes it." Loki let out a chitter that seemed to suggest otherwise.

Jack led the retinue in through what had at one time been a very large gun port, and then up a flight of stairs. The conversation between Chris and the children fell silent as Jack led them into a chamber that held a long oval table in the middle of the space with chairs rimming around. Above was a chandelier laden with candles and dripping with melted wax. Further back into the chamber, it became a cavernous opening, and Chris saw stairs leading up to a dimly lit doorway. Jack held up his hand to stop those behind him and then placed it upon the butt of the pistol in his sash.

"I'm lookin' to collect a bounty on a Captain Grant or a Captain Teague or some sorry devil with a name like that!" Jack called. His voice echoed into the emptiness and Chris heard movement from beyond the doorway. Chris watched as the barrel of a pistol emerged first followed by its holder. The man was tall and wore a long red frock coat with faded white embroidery. Chris could immediately tell that the man was Jack's father simply by the way that he wore his hair. The man's hair hung around his face in long dark dreadlocks that had certain trinkets and ornaments tied in it, and the man wore quite possibly the largest hat Chris had ever seen. His face was almost like melted wax with the wrinkles it bore, but his eyes were lively and quick. Chris' observation was cut short as the trigger on the pistol was pulled, and all present ducked as a bullet whizzed through the spot where Jack's head had been and embedded itself into the table.

As the smoke rose from the barrel, the man looked at Jack who sprung back up as soon as the danger was past. "Jackie?" He asked. He blew the smoke from the barrel and stuck the gun back into the inside of his coat before descending the stairs. "Is that you and –" Jocelyn rose hesitantly. "Jocelyn!" He arrived at the bottom of the stairs and crossed to his son and daughter. "How come you never write?"

"It's a pleasure to see you too, Pop." Jack replied, smiling. His father chucked him underneath the chin.

"Jocelyn!" The father hugged his daughter and then looked at the children behind her who had rose from their crouches now that it was apparent that there would be no more pistol shots firing. Chris hung back with the crew of the _Black Pearl_ as Jack's father kneeled and opened his arms to the little ones. "Lord, they've multiplied! Shang, you were knee-high to a fish's eye now last time I saw you! Geoff, ye couldn't even walk! Rachel, what a beauty! And Adanya, pleased to see you sweetheart!"

"Poppa Teague!" The children, realizing who he was, flooded into his arms. Their grandfather hugged them all to him and smiled.

"I got to keep watch in the crow's nest on the way here –!" Shang exclaimed.

"Uncle Jack let me steer the ship!" Rachel countered.

"I saw a mermaid!" Geoff proclaimed.

"What did you do, Adanya?" The man asked.

"I stayed with mummy." Adanya said. Her grandfather laughed and kissed her forehead.

"Pop, I want'a introduce ye to someone." Jack said. His father rose, balancing Adanya on his hip, and Jack led him to the crew of the _Black Pearl_ and introduced them in the order that they stood.

"This is Anamaria, officer of the watch; Athos, rated able; Cotton, helmsman and cook; and Gibbs, me first mate. They're part of me crew." Jack said, touching each person on the shoulder as he introduced them.

"I hope my Jackie boy is treating you all fairly." Jack's father said. "If not, I'll fix that." He looked to his son, and Chris thought she saw Jack waver under his father's gaze.

"He's a right fine captain." Gibbs remarked. "I've sailed under many a harsher captain, sir." Anamaria looked as if she was going to say something, but with a look from Gibbs and a poke from Athos' elbow, she stayed silent.

"You've not introduced this lass to me, Jack." Jack's father now fixed his gaze upon Chris. She vaguely hoped her damask bandana wasn't too worn and dirty and she felt rather self conscious of her bare feet. "Did you bring me a present?" Chris was a bit concerned at the hope that she heard in Jack's father's voice.

His son chuckled. "Pop, this is Chris. She's me quartermaster, and me wife." Jack said her titles so casually Chris would have lost it in the conversation otherwise. Chris did not smile, but rather hoped her face was a mask of friendliness as Jack's father looked upon her. After he surveyed her up and down, he turned back to Jack.

"You did well, Jackie. And as for you," he turned to Chris and opened his free arm, "Welcome to the family, lass." He enveloped Chris in a warm one-armed hug that caught her a bit off guard.

"So what do I call ye?" Chris asked as he pulled away. He had reached down to enclose his fingers around her forearm, and his hand stayed there.

"Jackie and Joccy call me 'Pop,' so you could call me 'Pop Teague.' Or just call me whatever the Hell you want, I don't care." He smiled, showing a mouthful of white as opposed to Jack's smile full of gold. He linked his arm with Chris and said, "I'm sure you're all weathered from the Devil's Throat. Come on up." And so, carrying Adanya on his hip and arms linked with Chris, he led the pirates up the stairs and through the doorway.

Inside they found a room carved out in the rock of the cave. There was a fireplace set into the stone, and Chris shuddered to think of the effort it took to carve the chimney for the fireplace through the rock. The room's furniture was simple in design and consisted of a long table with nine chairs rimming it (there was only one chair to serve as the head of the table), a bed concealed by curtains, a large old chair by the fireplace, a bookshelf with tattered books, and a stove, counter, and a wash basin. "Go ahead and sit all of you down." Teague said. "Let me get something to wet your whistles." Still balancing Adanya on his hip, he pulled open the cupboard underneath the counter and busied himself with its contents while the others arranged themselves around the table.

With some slight difficulty, Chris procured Loki from the children (upon finding himself back on Chris' shoulder, he took a hold on a bit of her hair and wrapped his tail around Chris' neck with force she did not know the monkey's tail possessed) and cast a wary eye upon the children. Shang and Geoff shared a seat after all the adults had claimed their own, Adanya stayed with her grandfather, and Rachel sat upon her mother's lap. Teague's children sat on either side of the head chair and it was not long before their father returned with a stack of battered tin cups and two jugs. "I'd make tea for the kiddies, but I'm fresh out of sugar." Teague said as he poured a golden liquid Chris took as cider into tin cups, "And Lord knows the kids only drink the tea for the sugar. Don't you, Adanya?" Teague asked the child at his hip. She giggled and her grandfather bounced her a few times before continuing to pour.

"I've been tryin' to convince Joccy that Geoff and Shang are old enough for rum –" Jack began, but a **thunk** under the table and Jack jerking his leg in pain interrupted his speech.

"Don't give Pop any ideas." Jocelyn warned, her eyes narrowing at Jack.

"Your mother, God rest her, gave Jack rum to fall asleep starting at age three. I would advise against it, as we all see how Jackie turned out." Teague scooted the cups to the children as Jack's crewmembers did their best not to snicker. Teague now poured an amber liquid into the remaining cups and scooted them to the adults. Having his and Adanya's before him, he sat in the chair at the head of the table with a sigh and waited for Adanya to drink before reaching for his cup. "Chris." He began after taking a drink. "Is that short for something, or is there something my son should be telling me?"

Chris smiled and marveled at how many people asked her whether Chris was her whole name or not. "It's short for Christiana, Pop Teague."

"And ye won't believe who her brother is, Pop." Jack butted in. "Her brother is James Norrington, swear on a stack o' Bibles."

Teague's eyes lit up with interest at this bit of information. "Truly?" Chris nodded. "How is your brother doing?"

This question caught Chris off-guard; it was certainly an odd question coming out of the mouth of the father of Captain Jack Sparrow. "He's doing well. He's stationed at Port Royale."

"I saved him once, many years ago. Your father and I were fighting, but James fell from the ship and I saved his life. Your father wasn't too keen on that." Teague laughed. "How is Admiral Norrington, by the way? Retired, fat, and happy?"

"James and I have different fathers. I think Admiral Norrington passed away shortly after the incident you're detailing and then our mother married my father and I came along."

"And her father's a lord, Pop!" Jack added.

"Sparrow, if you're trying to help me make a good impression, stop it." Chris hissed.

Teague's face was a mask of curiosity. "Just how, then, do you come to be a pirate, Christiana?"

"Freedom." Chris said simply. She hoped that she wouldn't have to explain her reason anymore, and she was happy to see that Teague was satisfied with her answer.

After he questioned Athos, Gibbs, Anamaria, and Cotton (whose parrot was most uncooperative) on their backgrounds and lives, he asked, "Now why exactly have you come to scenic Shipwreck City to visit this old bag of bones?"

Jack looked to Gibbs and nodded. "Hey, kiddies, do you want to hear a story about cursed Aztec gold?"

"Yes!" The children chimed.

Gibbs rose and nodded to the other crewmembers. "Then come with us and let's let your mum and Uncle Jack talk with your poppa." The crewmembers and the children filed out the doorway and down the steps. Chris was about to follow, but Jack called her back.

"Ye're apart of this family too, ye can talk with the grown-ups." Jack assured her. Chris responded by punching him in the arm. Teague smiled at them both.

"Ah, she reminds me of your mother." He sighed, leaning back in his chair. Jack grabbed his shoulder and winced slightly before pulling the chair out next to him for Chris. He eased back into his chair and Teague put his hands together, his fingers steepled. "Now I ask again, why are you here?"

Jack looked across the table at Jocelyn and then back to his father. "I happened to check in with Jocelyn and…" Jack hesitated. "Well, er… I decided it was high time we come and check in. Plus, ye needed to meet Chris, and –"

Teague stopped his son with a raised hand and instead turned to Jocelyn. "Would you like to give me an explanation that doesn't leave me wondering if I'll be lucky to escape my grave by the time it comes out?"

Jocelyn smiled softly and then looked at her hands. "I was in a bad way, Pop." She wrung her hands as she spoke, not making eye contact with her father. "The inn's floundering, I need to keep the children fed, and when Jonah shows up –"

Teague's face darkened. "He's still around the children? I thought we had a talk about that last time I was there."

Jocelyn looked up to her father. "We did, but he's Geoff's father and –"

"Father?" Teague snorted. "Pah. He hasn't done a single thing to deserve the title!" He rubbed his chin and looked to both his children. "So it appears we have a problem."

"Aye." Jack replied. "But I want ye to know, Pop, I forced Jocelyn to come. She didn't want to, but I'm supposed to take care o' me little sis, ain't I?"

"You're also not supposed to stick your nose in her business unless she wants you to." Teague said. "But I suppose you did right by her." He sighed and stood. "We'll figure something out. But for now, let's just enjoy the company of one another, like a family. Aye?"

That evening, Teague fried two chickens for the crew and his family to eat and was also able to garner some oranges and bake some fresh biscuits. After dinner, all were obliged by Joshamee Gibbs telling the conclusion of the curse that the crew of the _Black Pearl_ suffered before Jack regained the captaincy. Teague laughed in places that seemed most inappropriate, like when it was discovered that Jack's crew had made off with the _Pearl_ and it seemed Jack would be condemned to death.

However, at the conclusion of the story, Teague declared it one of the finest tales he had ever heard spun. Shortly after, all retired. Teague had shown them all a nearby passage to a place that served as a type of barracks. All the children were tucked in and the adults spoke a little bit before heading to bed as well. Jack and Chris wedged themselves into a bed built for one (there were no double beds present and there were only ten beds in the barracks) and did their best to fall asleep. Jack proved to be a heavier sleeper, though, and inadvertently knocked Chris from the bed some time during the night.

She awoke as soon as she hit the floor and groggily remembered that she was not aboard the _Pearl_, but in Shipwreck City. She picked herself up off the floor and leered at Jack's sleeping form in the dark. She tugged one of the moth-eaten quilts from the bed and decided to toddle into the main hall and maybe sleep in one of the chairs at the long table. While Teague had undoubtedly headed to bed, he had left a single lantern burning low in the main hall, which Chris thought wise. She thought of the children and how if they had awoken in the middle of the night for a potty break they would be scared stiff of the dark and possibly raise a ruckus and wake the occupants of Shipwreck City. With the lantern, that diminished the chances by providing light.

Chris chose two of the chairs and pulled them out so that she could prop her legs up and sleep in a sitting position. As she settled back in the chair, she heard, "Couldn't sleep, hmm?" She looked up to see Teague bearing a lantern and emerging from the doorway to his room. His large hat was no longer upon his head, but a long red silk robe of an oriental variety replaced his earlier clothing. As he drew closer, Chris could see that the roots of his uncovered hair were faintly gray, and he indeed did seem more like a grandfather in this light.

"Your son kicked me out of bed. In his sleep." Chris replied, pulling her feet down from the chair so that Teague could sit. He did so.

"Ah, Jackie." Teague sighed as he sat. "At least he isn't boring though, savvy?"

Chris laughed and nodded. "That he isn't." She paused and then added, "I suppose his upbringing has something to do with that."

"Our Jackie always was one of a kind. Born in the middle of a storm in the Indian Ocean, didn't want to be pirate when he was younger." Teague laughed. "Jackie's been a handful. And now, he shows up with his sister, her children, and a bride. I don't know what will happen next." He then eyed Chris and said, "Speaking of which, when can I expect more grandchildren?"

If Chris had been drinking, she would have spat out the liquid in her mouth. "You have four." She stuttered. "Isn't four enough?"

Teague smiled and thumped his chest proudly. "Pirate." He explained.

"Of course." Chris replied, chuckling softly. "I don't know about that just yet." Indeed, it was a foreign question. She and Jack hadn't really talked about children; Hell, they hadn't even talked about marriage in the least before Jack decided to marry her upon the arrival of the _Resolute_ and the ship's priest.

Teague looked at Chris with amusement in his eye. "Tell me Christiana, are you close to your brother?"

Chris thought the question odd, but she replied, "We used to be. Now sine we're both in different professions, not so much."

"What about his cousin, Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III?" Teague asked, looking at her with a critical eye.

"We're not cousins; I don't think I have seen him since before I was ten." Chris replied. A shiver ran down her spine; Teague certainly did know a bit about the family of her brother.

"Then you might find it interesting to know that while Jack was young, Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III was a spy for the Royal Navy and befriended Jack to try and get to me." Chris' lips parted in surprise. "And now I'm going to ask you a question, and I expect an honest answer: Are you using my son to get to me under direction of your brother or his cousin?"

Chris' brow furrowed. She felt offended at the mere notion that she was trying to get to Jack's father through the pirate captain, and Teague didn't even know her; he only knew of her brother and his cousin. She did her best to quell her anger. "Sir, I love your son." She said very firmly. "And I would think that if you truly accepted me into your family as a Sparrow that you would not even think to ask such a question."

"My family is all I have, lass." Teague responded, standing his ground. "Sure, we may not see each other often, but without them I'm just an old man in an almost unreachable island. And with their mother gone, I'm all they have. I need to make sure that I'm not allowing them to be fed to the wolves."

Chris pursed her lips into a thin line. "I married your son because I love him. I'm sure that he would have found me out by now if I was someone untrustworthy and of low character as you have suspicions of. Do not underestimate your son."

"This is not about my son, this is about you." Teague replied tartly. "Be straight with me and if my suspicions prove to be of weight, I may let you walk out of here without waking Jack."

Chris stared hard at Teague. "I married your son because I love him. I am a pirate and I am certainly not trying to get to you through your son. Good God, I didn't even know your name until today, man!"

Teague's eyes narrowed and he looked upon Chris for a good amount of time until finally nodding. "I believe you." He said and then offered no form of apology or any consoling words.

"What if you didn't believe me?" Chris asked, cocking her head to the side. Teague silently drew a pistol from the pocket of his opulent robe and placed it upon the table. The flint was ready to go. "So this is where Jack gets his preparedness." Chris said, feeling her stomach do a flip flop.

"I did my best with him. He took too much to his mother, though." Teague lamented. "But now that we're friends, how about a nice cup of hot rum?" He returned the pistol to his pocket and stood. Chris looked up at him, wondering if she really wanted to have a drink with a man who was prepared to blow a hole in her mere moments before.

_Ah, what the Hell_… "Sure." Chris stood, folding her blanket over her arm. As she and Teague headed up the stairs to his room, she asked, in prime Gibbs fashion, "What do ye know about mermaids?"

The next morning, Jack awoke and was astonished to find that Chris was not in his bed. The children also were in the beds they had fallen asleep in, either, either. The other adults seemed to be relishing the rare opportunity to sleep in, and soft snores issued from each of them. Jack walked past his sleeping comrades and out into the cavern. He found the table empty, but heard laughter wafting from the doorway at the top of the stairs. He scaled them and entered Teague's room to find the four children, Chris (with Loki on the back of her chair), and Teague at the table. Each had a cup before them, and with a battered kettle atop a slab of stone in the middle of the table, it seemed they were having a tea party. As Jack entered, his father grabbed his cup and asked, "Is this the kettle?"

"No!" The children laughed.

Teague lifted the kettle from the stone and prodded the slab. "Is this the kettle?"

"No!"

Teague lowered the kettle and stood before putting his hands underneath Chris' arms and picking her up. "Is this the kettle?"

"No!" Adanya cackled.

"Poppa!" Rachel giggled.

"That's Auntie Chris!" Geoff objected.

"Oh, I beg to differ." Chris replied. She hooked her left arm so that it took the form of a handle at her side, and then she held her other arm up and bent the hand at the wrist to act as the spout. Loki peered at her from the back of her chair and chattered. "I'm a kettle now, aren't I?" With that, Teague pretended to pour her and the children erupted into laughter.

"Since when did Chris begin making hot drinks?" Jack asked, making his presence known. "Ye didn't tell me."

Everyone turned to look at Jack and Teague's grip became slack. Chris fell to the floor, causing all to look at her and then erupt into laughter, Chris included. She picked herself up from the floor and grinned at her husband. "Kiddies, come with Poppa and let's find something for breakfast. We can continue our tea party later." Each child took their cups from the table as their grandfather took the kettle, slab of stone, and his own cup. After they were put away, Teague lifted Geoff onto his shoulders and the troop of children, led by the older man, headed down the stairs to head to the larder next to the barracks.

Jack sat across from Chris and asked, "Just how long have ye been up with my dad and the kids?"

"Time is relative." Chris replied. Jack saw that she had some dark circles under her eyes. "But in answering your question, I may or may not have been up all night."

Jack jerked his head sideways and looked at her. "…Why?"

"Ye kicked me out of bed, Sparrow!" Chris replied. Loki screeched in agreement. "So I went to try and get some sleep in the cavern and your dad came out." She paused for a moment before adding, "He was carrying a pistol to shoot me because he didn't trust me."

Instead of being shocked or surprised by this information, Jack dismissively said, "Oh, he does that with all me friends." Chris cocked an eyebrow. "What? Unless I'm mistaken, ye don't seem to be bleeding from an orifice anywhere."

"You could have warned me." Chris suggested. She reached up to stroke Loki's head behind her.

"Eh, what's the fun in that?" Jack asked. "'Sides, he would have been more suspicious if you expected it." In response to Chris' arched eyebrow, he said, "Look, love, you're a member of this family now, and trust me, we'll back ye up whenever ye need it, even if what you need back up for it daft as the day is long. So ye need to get used to anything that me dad, or Jocelyn for that matter, may throw at you."

"Even when it's not shy of planned murder?" Chris asked.

"Maiming, sure, but murder? Yes." Jack replied, waving his hand dismissively. Chris burst out laughing and shook her head. "What?" Jack asked.

Chris stood and crossed to sit next to him, resting her head upon his shoulder. Loki chirped in a lonesome way from the empty chair. "Nothing. I just love you, is all. And your family." And with that, the children and Teague returned and everyone began to make breakfast.

oOo

Nothing's better than family,  
For the ones who love you so  
Be a shoulder to cry on when you are in need  
They will never leave you alone  
When your friends bring you down  
And they drag you through the dirt  
And when nobody's around  
They will carry you through the hurt

Just remember that family comes first  
Where you gonna run to when no one is around?  
Do you think how dare they love you.  
When your face is on the ground?  
When you feel your strength is almost gone  
And When your heart is getting weak  
And you don't think you can keep holding on  
And they stand for your feet  
Family comes first

I can see you crying - someone broke your heart,  
Instead of being with those who love you,  
You spend time apart,  
It's because you think they won't understand  
The pain you're going through  
So you don't reach out your  
Hand for them, 'til they'll pull and reach for you.

Just remember that family comes first  
Where you gonna run to when no one is around?  
Do you think how dare they love you.  
When your face is on the ground?  
When you feel your strength is almost gone  
And When your heart is getting weak  
And you don't think you can keep holding on  
And they stand for your feet  
Family comes first

Don't you be ashamed of your family, put you into this earth,  
And that's what it's worth unconditionally,  
Sometimes you may disagree and won't see eye to eye  
Don't you run away they will be right by your side

Just remember that family comes first  
Where you gonna run to when no one is around?  
Do you think how dare they love you.  
When your face is on the ground?  
When you feel your strength is almost gone  
And When your heart is getting weak  
And you don't think you can keep holding on  
And they stand for your feet  
Family comes first


	20. The Salvage Ship and the Four Safes

**Chapter Twenty  
The Salvage Ship and the Four Safes**

The ship creaked underneath Jack as he tried to guide it safely through the fog that had descended upon the _Pearl_ suddenly that morning. They had left Shipwreck Island weeks ago after it was decided that Jocelyn and the children would go to Tortuga. It was a place both Jack and Teague could keep an eye on her and the children at, and it was easy to secure Jocelyn a job working with Sarah at the tavern. After she was settled and Ragetti had spent time with his pregnant wife, the _Black Pearl_ sailed once more.

Athos, supported by his crutch on his newly carved wooden leg, was tolling the bell so that the sound would bounce off any objects in the fog. While this was occurring, Gibbs was busy muttering superstitions to anyone who would listen, calling the fog an omen of bad things to come. While he had been quite mild with his superstitions as of late, after leaving Shipwreck Island and passing through the Devil's Throat once more, he seemed to be clinging to his far-fetched beliefs more than usual.

"Mr. Gibbs," Jack finally said after about the third time Gibbs used the term 'misfortune,' "will you please shut your trap so that I can hear the bell's tolls?" He looked down to where Gibbs was by the forecastle and cocked his head to the side.

"...Aye Captain." Gibbs conceded, reconciling himself with a swig from his flask. At that moment, Chris emerged from the captain's cabin, wearing the coat Ragetti gave her their first Christmas together and looking very pale. It seemed that as the weeks passed since they left Shipwreck Island, she had taken slightly ill, but not enough to really worry about. She climbed the stairs and joined Jack at the wheel with a navigation chart in her hands.

"Alright there, darling?" Jack queried, eying her pallid complexion.

"It's damp and cold." Chris offered. "What do you think?"

"That's what generally happens when it's foggy, love." Jack said, smiling. Chris scowled and bent her head to read the chart in her hands. Just as Athos was about to strike the bell once more, a high-pitched ring emanated through the fog. Jack raised his hand to stop Athos from striking the bell and waited, listening. The ring came again.

"Another ship, and I don't reckon it'd be pirate with that prissy bell." Jack said, mostly to himself. A greedy twinkle glinted in his russet eyes as his crew looked to him. "All men to quarters, but do not beat to quarters. Athos have Pintel and Ragetti help ye below; Chris, prepare the boarding party. Cannon fire on me command." The crew immediately set to do as their captain instructed, except for Athos. Still holding the rod that struck the bell, he hobbled forward.

"Jack, I can help the boarding party—" Athos objected, looking up to his captain.

"Athos, me boy, I don't want to see what will happen to ye if you get speared like a fish." Jack said, his tone firm. "Head below." Athos obeyed, but none too happily.

The only sound aboard the ship was the creaking of the wood and rigging as the tolling bell came nearer. The distant pitches of voices were heard. Jack looked around in the fog, sniffed the air, tested it with his finger, and then adjusted the wheel. Chris had hauled the chest of weapons into the deck, and within minutes she and the boarding party were armed and ready to board the other ship.

From out of the fog emerged the hull of the other ship, titled the _Spanish Maid_. The _Pearl_ immediately maneuvered alongside her and the pirates could tell by the colors flying that it was a British ship. Jack gave no orders, but Chris pulled out her pistol, as did the rest of the boarding party. "G'day, gents!" Jack called out, sweeping his hat from his head. "Grappling hooks!" Chris and the boarding party threw the hooks across, securing the two ships together quickly. The sailors of the other ship had not noticed the _Black Pearl_ until Jack had spoke, and now that they were tethered to a pirate ship of great repute, it was looking as though fortune frowned upon them. Many fell to their knees, pleading for deliverance against Davy Jones, others grabbed for whatever weapons they could as Jack continued speaking. "Now, now mates. We don't need to fight. If you do, I have all of me guns pointed at your hull, and me boarding party here is a bunch of crack shots. So why don't we just throw down our guns and settle this in a nice, peaceful fashion?"

The captain was identifiable by his large hat, and he seemed flummoxed, He looked from Jack to the boarding party, and then down at the open gun ports and those inside waiting to light the fuses. He looked to his sailors and said, "I'm not going to lose a good bunch of sailors that are worth their salt in a fool's battle." He looked to Jack and called, "We surrender!" A cabin boy lowered their colors and Jack turned the wheel over to Cotton before plunking his hat back atop his head.

Chris tossed a board across the gap between the two ships and Jack was the first to board, followed closely by his quartermaster and the boarding party. As he approached the other captain, he whipped his hat from his head and introduced himself. "Captain Jack Sparrow, sir." The other captain blanched at Jack's introduction and closed his eyes before murmuring a prayer. When his eyes opened, Jack replaced his hat. "Now..." The pirate captain grinned and rubbed his hands together. "What are ye haulin'?"

"Salvaging equipment." The captain answered. He seemed to begin trembling.

"For what exactly, mate?"

The captain looked hesitant to answer, but one look at the boarding party at Jack's heels seemed to encourage the information that came from his mouth. "There was a shipment of riches from the New World heading for His Majesty's coffers. The ship encountered a bad storm, and she sank. Our job is to bring up the four safes inside the wreck and as much treasure as we can find and take them back to Port Royale, where they'll be escorted back to England by several Navy ships."

"Really?" Jack smiled again as the captain nodded. "You have my gratitude, sir. I think that you have made our day!" With that, Jack promptly crossed to the captain and knocked him out with a blow to the head courtesy of his pistol.

The location of the wreck was coaxed from the first mate and the stores were lightened in the way of rum and all of the salvage equipment was pulled from inside of the ship's belly. The crew members were tied up and the rudder chain was removed and hurled into the sea by Marty. The unconscious captain was left unfettered so that he could free his crew upon his return to consciousness.

Upon the pirates' return to the _Black _Pearl, the captain set course for the location of the wreck and commanded that they make way at full sail for the location. Jack had a manic gleam in his eyes now, something Chris had rarely seen before. He took the helm himself and refused to give it up. That evening, Chris brought him his biscuit and hunk of meat that would be his dinner from the galley. Even though they had emerged from the fog hours ago, she still looked as clammy and white as she had previously.

Though Jack was jubilant and eager to arrive at the spot of the wreck, he did not let his wife's continued pallor go unnoticed. "Ye sure you're all right?" Jack asked, taking the plate of steaming food from her.

"God, I swear, the next person who asks that is going to have to remove my foot from their nether regions!" Chris swore. "But I do think part of it is Athos' cooking." She added.

"Don't let him hear ye say that." Jack warned. "Poor lad already feels rotten enough without ye pickin' on him."

"I wasn't –" Chris objected.

Jack silenced her with a raised hand and tucked into his food, speaking in between bites and swallows. "I figure we should be there by tomorrow evening, hopefully with enough light to dive in and get a good lay on the wreck before the sun goes down."

"Mmm." Chris replied. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of the hunk of meat and seemed to restrain a gag.

Jack arched an eyebrow. "Are ye absolutely certain you're alright, love?"

"Jack, bend over." She said, picking up her foot. Jack laughed and used the cover of the wheel to protect himself from any kick she might want to plant in his orifices. She ended up watching him eat, looking very discontent as she did so. When Jack was done eating, he pecked his wife on the cheek when she took his plate and she then vanished into the galley. Jack stood alone at the helm for the rest of the night, only leaving twice to make himself a mug of hot rum (to take away the chill of the night). In the morning, Chris looked paler than the day before when she emerged from the captain's cabin, and when Jack asked her the same question as the day before; she gave him a rude hand gesture and skulked up the foremast and into the top.

As the day progressed, heavy black clouds hovered around the ship, glaring down threateningly at the pirates. Given the fog the day before, and now the circumstances of heading for the spot of a wrecked ship in order to loot it, Gibbs immediately began babbling about bad omens until he was bombarded by a bottle thrown by Chris from her perch on the foremast.

"Clean that shattered glass up and start acting like pirates!" Jack roared. He had no idea what was up with Chris or Gibbs, nor did he know just why Chris happened to have a glass bottle with her up in the top, but damn it, pirates weren't suppose to act like children! Evening closed in on them fairly quickly, and when Jack charted the distance they had covered, he found that they had arrived on the spot where the ship had sank. He ordered for the anchors to be lowered and the sails to be raised. All were called to the deck, and Jack spoke to them after figuring that it was indeed too late in the day to start diving.

"The storm may have stirred things up below, so we'll have to do a wide sweep." Jack announced, gazing into the dark blue water. He tapped his chin in thought before continuing. "In the morning, I'll sort ye into groups, and ye can all take the jolly boats and disperse about this area. Ye can all fill up wineskins with air and use them to breathe under the water for a while. Until then, I want two lookouts to make sure we're not stumbled upon by a passing vessel. As for the rest of ye, I suggest ye all use yer time wisely, and celebrate our soon-to-be fortune!" The crew clamored with assent and started to filter into the belly of the ship.

Before Chris could walk past Jack, he snatched her arm out of the air, spun her to him, and gave her a warm kiss. When he pulled away, Chris looked at him in surprise, but a warm smile of appreciation slipped onto her lips. "Chris," He began, brushing her cheek with his fingers, "I know that something is wrong. What is it?"

The quartermaster hesitated before relenting slightly. "I'm feelin' under the weather." She admitted. "I just didn't want ye to worry; there's more things to do aboard this ship than that."

"Forget the others for now, Chris. Let's get ye to bed." And with that, he took her by the wrist and waist and the two retired to the captain's cabin for the night.

The next morning was filled with shouts and splashes. The wreck had occurred in a place that was perfect for diving. Islands surround the starboard and port side of the _Black Pearl_, and with the islands tapering off into the sea floor, diving would not be to an extreme depth. The jolly boats were dispersed in a wide diameter around the ship, each filled with at least half a dozen crew members. Only one person was to dive at a time so that when they surfaced another could immediately replace them while the others helped the diver into the boat.

The only pirates left on the _Pearl_ to search directly underneath her were Jack, Chris, Cotton, Athos, and Anamaria. Anamaria dived first, followed by Jack, Chris, and Cotton. Jack and Anamaria deemed it too dangerous for Athos to dive, so instead, he stayed aboard the ship with Loki and Cotton's Parrot, watching for mirror signals from the jolly boats that would inform them that something had been found. With no success by noon, the boats rowed back to the _Black Pearl_ for a midday meal before dispersing once more.

"Alright, mates." Jack said, scratching his head later that day as the sun began its descent. Anamaria, Cotton, and Chris stared back at them, wet and tired. "We've been going about this all wrong. As we dive, each of us searches the same area the others have." He took off his bandana and wrung it out before slapping it back on his head. "All of us, 'cept Athos, are goin' to dive off in each direction of the ship. Cot, take the bow, Ana the stern, I'll' stay port, Chris, take starboard. Take wineskins, fill 'em with air, and Athos, ye pull us up when we want back on the ship."

The crew members did as Jack said, and each jumped off their section after procuring wineskins and filling them with air. Chris' bit of ocean was filled with the waning sun. She strung her wineskin around her neck, tied her hair back with her bandana, and dove.

Despite the sunlight, Chris could hardly see under the water. The salt stung her eyes at first, but after a small amount of time, it stung less. She dived straight down, letting out air bubbles as she went. What Chris could see was a white blur of ocean floor below, and a bluish blur above of water and sky above. _This isn't going to be very productive if I can't see anything_…

Upon reaching the sandy bottom, she could make out brightly colored fish and ruddy colored crustaceans swimming and scuttling along the bottom. Taking in a breath of air from her wineskin, Chris floated above the ocean, examining it for anything that would be tell-tale evidence of a wreck. She found pieces of coral and a few sponges, but that was it. Chris emptied her wine bag of air before kicking for the surface.

When she broke the surface, she treaded water and breathed in enough fresh air to stop panting. Once she had stopped gasping, she filled up her wineskin and dove again. As she did, she noticed the blur above her was tinted pink in the setting sun. She let a few air bubbles escape from her nose and then dived down at a forty-five degree angle.

Chris was almost out of air when she spotted a dark shape looming in the water ahead. She squinted her eyes in an attempt to see a clearer view. Chris found that she could make out a foremast with the remains of sails moving in the current. She had found the shipwreck!

Chris surfaced and let out a shout with the last of the air in her lungs. Behind her, on the _Black Pear_l, another shout answered her. She turned in the water and shouted, "I found it, I found it!" Chris waved her arms and almost inhaled some seawater in her jubilation. Two figures raced to the starboard bulkhead and shouted victoriously. They turned to each other and spoke for a few minutes before disappearing, and then one dived in, bringing a chain with them. As the person swam closer, Chris saw it was Jack.

"Me lovely girl!" Jack exclaimed, throwing his arms around Chris as soon as he came close. The end result was both of them almost drowning. "It's right down here?" He asked.

Chris nodded. "That part of the salvaging equipment?" She asked, eyeing the chain. She saw that it was split into four lengths, each with a hook at the end.

"Aye. Let's get us some treasure, my girl!" And with that, they dived. The dark ship seemed increasingly treacherous as the limited light began to decrease. Jack had brought two extra wineskins as well, and Chris held hers tightly as they swam through the broken door into the forecastle, thus entering the ship.

It was even darker inside, and Chris had a hard time seeing. Jack mimicked to her that they should descend the stairwell and head to the hold of the ship. Chris nodded her head in agreement and sucked in a breath full of air from her wineskin. The stairwell was off the companionway right inside the doorway, and both of the pirates swam down it. The only thing of interest was them swimming upon a body at the bottom of the stairwell. The body was crumpled and broken looking. The thought of Chris swimming in the same water the corpse had been marinating in made her sick, and so she tried not to look at it as she swam over it and into the hold.

In the dim light, Chris saw that the hold was filled with sacks and chests. Behind the sacks and chests, however, Jack and Chris found the four safes the captain of the salvage ship had talked about. The safes were large enough to fit a grown man in height and width. Both of them were almost out of air, and so they hooked the chain to the safe closest to the door, and exited the ship through the gun ports in the deck above. After refilling their lungs and wineskins, they followed the chain back into the hold and to the safe. The water made the safe more buoyant than it would be on land, so Chris and Jack were able to move it to the deck of the sunken ship, where nothing would hinder it being pulled back to the _Pearl._

Jack and Chris surfaced and the captain turned to the quartermaster. "I'll go have Athos and the others pull it up, you stay here so we don't lose the ship." He commanded.

"How about I start moving the safes onto the deck?" Chris countered, "We don't have enough time to wait for you to swim all the way to the _Pearl_ to retrieve the chain three times and come back before we're left in darkness."

Jack thought about that for a moment. "Alright. Here," He strung his wineskin around her neck. And with that, he swam back to the _Pearl_.

Chris was able to move the three remaining safes with little mishaps. The only problem came as she moved the last safe from the hold. Somehow, the corpse at the bottom of the stairwell seemed to grab her leg and attach itself to the limb. Whether it did or whether Chris was careless and had hooked her ankle onto the corpse's arm she didn't know, but she almost drowned in the panic that filled her as she tried to free herself. By the time she had struggled to the surface and calmed herself, and then dove and brought the safe to the deck, Jack had returned from delivering the third chest. It was dark, but they wanted to get the last safe. Like fools, they plunged into utter darkness and found the chest with some difficulty. It had taken some a longer amount of time than their previous dives, but at least it would be done with for the night. They secured the chain before surfacing, and they used the chain to find their way back to the _Black Pearl_.

"We got the last one lads; pull us up!" Jack called to the deck above, pulling on the chain. The chain began to be winched up, and as the safe rose out of the water, Jack and Chris grabbed onto the chain and hitched a ride up to the deck. Jack and Chris were jubilant as they were raised into the air, but once they came in view of the deck, their happiness was cut short.

Off the port side of the _Black Pearl_ floated the Royal Navy ship _Titan_. The pirates of the _Pearl_ had been bound, gagged, and lined up upon each side of the deck. Waiting for the captain and quartermaster was Mathias Chesed and his crew. Pistols were trained upon them and Chesed said, "How nice of you to join us, Captain Sparrow –" He paused as he looked at Chris. "Don't I know you?" He asked himself quietly. Chris' stomach flip flopped; if Chesed recognized her as the 'midwife' who attended to the 'dead' Athos back in Port Royale, Norrington was going to be in trouble. _Maybe ye should worry about yer own neck right now, Chris_, she viciously reminded herself. But what of he had seen Athos? _Shut it and pay attention_!

"Admiral Chesed, may I introduce you to my wife?" Jack asked, cocking his head to the side. "I doubt ye know her, for she was unspoiled when I met her."

The admiral ignored the insult. "Get them on deck!" Chesed ordered, and his men pulled the captain and quartermaster from the safe once it was lowered onto the deck. Chris saw that the previous three safes had already been loaded onto the deck of the _Titan_. "Thank you so much for retrieving the safes for us, Sparrows." Chesed gloated. "I think you were more efficient than the salvage crew would have been."

"They're how you found us." Jack growled, his eyes narrowing.

"Hmmm, yes. Maybe next time you should do justice to your profession and kill those you rob." Chesed stopped his men from moving the fourth chest after they unsecured it. "Hold on men. "Let's have our wonderful couple here unload it and see what they're losing, since they've already been of so much help. Open it to make their job easier. Mr. Tate." His lieutenant did so using a ring of keys of different sizes. When the door opened, Chris was blinded with reflected light from layers of golden bars that lay inside. "Go to." Chesed commanded.

She and Jack unloaded the bars onto the deck under the barrel of a gun. The bars were then carried to the _Titan_ by Chesed's men. Chris had no idea just why Chesed was doing this other than to humiliate them, and it was all she could do not to lob a bar at Chesed's head. Of course, if she did such a thing, not only would she be killed outright, but so would Jack and the crew.

Once the safe was emptied, Chris and Jack stood before it, waiting their fate. Chesed walked forward, looking at them both. "I know what you're wondering. I'm not going to arrest you." He said simply. "Because of you, I now have enough pull to get back into the good graces of His Majesty and the admiralty. Allow me to repay you, both of you." He looked at Jack as he grabbed Chris by the shirt and threw her into the safe.

"NO!" Jack howled, but Chesed's lieutenant held him back as the admiral kicked the door shut. The last thing Jack saw of Chris was her startled face before the hollow slam of the door.

The lock clicked and Chesed shouted, "Kind sirs, if you'd please!" Several Navy sailors rushed forward and put their shoulders into the safe. It broke through the bulkhead and plummeted over the side of the ship and into the sea below with a loud splash. Meanwhile, the other Navy sailors began throwing the gagged and bound pirates into the sea on the port side.

"YOU BASTARD! YOU _YELLOW-LIVERED_ _BASTARD_!" Jack roared, lunging at Chesed and breaking from the lieutenant's grip. Chesed caught him by the shirt and promptly punched the pirate captain across the face. Jack dropped to the deck and Chesed turned toward the port side.

"Back to the ship!" Chesed commanded. He and his sailors streamed back to the _Titan_ as Jack pulled himself to his feet. The grappling hooks securing both ships together were cut and the planks fell away as the _Titan_ began to pull away. A cracking and snapping sound suddenly emanated from the air, and Jack looked up just in time to see that Chesed's men had tied lines to the sails above and as the _Titan_ moved away, the sails were pulled from the yardarms and floated down to the deck.

Jack, his ship in shambles, his crew thrown into the sea bound, and his wife thrown into the sea inside a safe, stood unsure of what to do next. He looked to the port side and knew that his crew was below, likely drowning. He then looked to the starboard side and knew that his wife was probably doing the same. He did not know what to do, and he had no one to help –

"Captain!" Athos hobbled from the galley with his crutch beneath his arm and his wooden leg missing. "I was hiding, because I knew Chesed would recognize me –"

"Thank God!" Jack grabbed Athos by the arms and pulled a knife from his belt. "Your girl and others are on the port side, drowning." Athos' mouth dropped open. "Can ye swim and cut bonds?"

The one-legged boy snatched the knife from Jack's hands. "Yes!" Athos cried, tearing himself from Jack's grip and hobbling for the port side with no further motivation and placing the knife in between his teeth.

"Good, do it!" Jack ran to the starboard side as Athos abandoned his crutch and slipped over the port side. Athos hit the water and surfaced immediately, using his arms to swim and his leg as a rudder. He found the sailors trying to right themselves in the water to breathe, and several had sunk. The first pirate he spotted, he cut his bonds and after making sure he could at least tread water, enlisted him to help free their crewmates.

On the other side, Jack dove down into the murk and plummeted into the dark water. His first dive was fruitless, but after surfacing and positioning himself under the broken bulkhead, he dove once more. He reached blindly in the water as he dove, and then one of his fingers nicked something smooth and metal. He pulled himself forward into the water and felt that it was indeed the safe. Through the water, he could hear Chris pounding on the door. The sound of her struggling inside sent his stomach into a vicious spiral. He felt until he found the keyhole and then he reached into his hair.

Tied in among the coins and beads was a dark wire that he kept hidden in case he ever found himself in a prison cell. He pulled the wire from his hair and stuck it into the keyhole, moving it up and down in an attempt to pick the lock. Being in the dark, in the water, and running out of oxygen didn't give him swiftness or grace, but he continued working the wire. Even as his lungs screamed for oxygen, he refused to surface, afraid that he would lose the safe if he did, and also because the pounding had slowly reduced in frequency and then fell silent.

Jack was terrified that Chris was already dead, but he needed to pick the lock. He needed to do everything he could, even if he died himself. Without Chris – God, without Chris, he didn't know what he'd do. In a last act of desperation, Jack jerked the wire back forth and then heard the blessed click of the lock. He pulled the door open, almost breathing in a lungful of water in his furor.

Reaching inside, Jack grabbed arms, and hands grabbed him back. Letting out a triumphant blow of bubbles, Jack pulled Chris to himself and then kicked for the surface. When they broke the surface, Jack sucked in a lungful of air and as soon as he heard Chris intake breath, he pressed his lips against hers. "Oh blimey girl, ye scared the Hell outta me!" He gasped, pressing his cheek against hers. "God, never do that again, alright?"

"Jack… I've got something to tell you." Chris replied, coping rather well for someone who could have drowned seconds ago. "And when I was down there, I was scared witless that I hadn't, and if I died, ye wouldn't know…"

"It can wait, love, it can wait, let's get back on deck…" He held Chris as he pulled himself to the chain that had taken up slack and sagged into the water without the weight of the safe. Chris climbed up first, shakily, with Jack following. Once on board, Jack crossed to the other side and asked, "Are people alive down there?"

"Sparrow, lower down a rope before I gut you and wear your intestines for garters!" Anamaria called. Jack did not argue but lowered down several of the lines that had secured the now fallen sails.

"Jack, I need to tell you –" Chris said, coming up to him once the lines were in the water. They were both dripping wet, and a slight breeze cut right through their cold wet clothes.

"No, let's get you –" Jack said, pulling her towards the cabin.

"Damn it, Sparrow, I'm trying to tell you something!" Chris objected. Her tone caught Jack by surprise. He put both hands upon her shoulders.

"What love, what?" Jack asked, moving her wet hair out of her face so that he could look upon her unhindered.

"I'm... I'm," Chris swallowed hard and then let out a breath, "I'm carrying your child."

Jack thought his jaw was going to come off it dropped so low. "What?" He asked, his voice every bit as stunned as he was. "I – What?"

"I didn't tell ye because – because –" Chris let out a sob, "We never talked about children, and I was afraid ye didn't want kids, and then when you found out, ye'd abandon me on a spit of land and never come back!"

Jack was speechless. Chris was pregnant with his child. His head was reeling. He was going to be a father; he and Chris had created life –

"Jack, say somethin'!" Chris pled, her voice choked up and high.

"What the Hell's going on up there?" Anamaria demand.

"I lowered the lines, mind yer business!" Jack shouted, turning to the port side. He calmed himself and turned back to his wife. "How far along are ye?" He stuttered.

"Doctor Baloo figured a month and a half, but that was two weeks ago, so I'm two months." Chris said. Her face was supplicating and fearful as she waited for what Jack would now say.

"Ye've known two weeks?" Jack asked.

The woman sniffed and her voice broke. "I didn't want to… I—I thought ye'd… I was afraid of what'd happen if… **When** I told ye." It was hard to tell whether Chris was hysterical or crying at the moment. Maybe it was both.

"I'm goin' to be a father. We're… we're goin' to have a kiddy!" Jack threw his arms around Chris in warm embrace and held her to him. "Oh, Chris…"

"What will we do?" Chris asked, her voice child-like and her fingers clutching onto his shirt. People were starting to pull themselves up from the water and the warm embrace of the captain and quartermaster was not going unnoticed.

"This isn't the time to worry about that, my girl." Jack said, kissing her forehead. "Now is the time to be concerned with getting you warm and safe..."

Athos and those he had freed had saved every pirate of the _Black Pearl_ from drowning. With the exception of some vomiting and the need for rest, no one was worse for the wear. Every sailor was dried off and given a flagon of hot rum on top of their rations. Once the crew was taken care of, Jack only put volunteers on watch, just in case Chesed would return. "We'll set to repairing the sails tomorrow, mates." He wearily assured his crew before escorting Chris to the captain's cabin. "I'll be right out."

Jack helped her strip off her wet clothes and change into dry trousers and a shirt. "I'll be on deck keepin' watch. Ye stay warm, girl."

"I should come too, Jack. Here, I can stand a watch –" Chris said, grabbing her coat.

"No, no, no." Jack stopped her. "Ye've been lyin' to me about not feelin' well and ye're staying inside tonight. It's not just you we have to worry about, it's also the new Sparrow." He pointed at her stomach.

"I can –" Chris objected.

"Damn it, woman! You just told me that you've known you've been pregnant for two weeks! Let me win this one!" Jack's tone was not angry, but firm. Chris meekly nodded, relenting finally. Jack leaned in to give her a hug, to hold her, to make sure she was there and safe. Lastly, he ran his hands down her shoulders, over her arms, grasped her fingertips, and then let his hands rest on her stomach. It was almost unnoticeably bigger. Jack crouched down and put his face close to Chris' abdomen. "Ye stay warm too, alright?" It was so odd to think that now there was a baby growing inside of Chris. His baby, and Chris' baby. Unexplainable tears threatened to fill his eyes, so he blinked hard and stood up. With one last caress of his wife, Jack left the cabin and went to assume his duties.

oOo

Well I just heard the news today

It seems my life is going to change

I closed my eyes, begin to pray

Then tears of joy stream down my face

With arms wide open

Under the sunlight

Welcome to this place

I'll show you everything

With arms wide open

With arms wide open

Well I don't know if I'm ready

To be the man I have to be

I'll take a breath; I'll take her by my side

We stand in awe, we've created life

With arms wide open

Under the sunlight

Welcome to this place

I'll show you everything

With arms wide open

Now everything has changed

I'll show you love

I'll show you everything

With arms wide open

With arms wide open

I'll show you everything ...oh yeah

With arms wide open...wide open

If I had just one wish

Only one demand

I hope he's not like me

I hope he understands

That he can take this life

And hold it by the hand

And he can greet the world

With arms wide open...

With arms wide open

Under the sunlight

Welcome to this place

I'll show you everything

With arms wide open

Now everything has changed

I'll show you love

I'll show you everything

With arms wide open

With arms wide open

I'll show you everything...oh yeah

With arms wide open...wide open


	21. Pearl !

**Chapter Twenty-One  
Pearl**

The _Pearl_ had sailed into a gentle rainstorm one afternoon, and the clouds seemed to be traveling along with the _Pearl_ into the night. A gentle breeze coaxed the ship along and the rain was warm and hardly discomforting. Chris smiled into the rain, enjoying the warm water drops from the heavens. Her burgeoning belly peeked out between the unbuttoned flaps of her coat. Chris turned back to the wheel and took it in her hands once more. The crew had been slightly cheered at Chris' evident pregnancy (save Gibbs, who began muttering new superstitions to himself. Sometimes the man really didn't know when to leave well enough alone), but the overall mood soon became somber. Pregnancy meant that Chris would have to leave the _Black Pearl_ for an unknown amount of time to give birth and raise the baby, and her absence would not be celebrated. She hadn't been voted into the position of quartermaster by the crew for nothing, after all.

Contemplating the future, Chris gently turned the wheel starboard. Doctor Baloo had figured her at five months when they had been in Tortuga a week ago, and suggested she leave sailing behind in the next month or so. She was dreading the approaching day when she would have to leave the _Black Pearl_ and her crew behind, but it would have to be done. She sighed and reached up to Loki, who perched on her shoulder, and scratched his chin.

She knew it was silly, but she wondered how Loki would handle the arrival of the baby. Chris knew that since she and Jack had married, Loki did not receive as much attention from her as he did previously, and with a baby on the way, the fact would ring even more true. Sometimes Chris thought about the possibility of releasing Loki into the wild for him to find himself a mate, but she would miss the ape too much. She banished these thoughts from her mind and pulled her hand away. "Ready to go and get some grub?" She asked the monkey. He shrieked in agreement.

The bell rang for the changing of the dog watches, and Jack came up from the galley below, still chewing on his biscuit. "Love." He nodded at her, taking a knob of the wheel in his hand. "How is Jack the second today?" He asked, eyeing her belly.

Chris smiled. "Rolling around in there like a greased pig." She touched her belly to feel him move once more.

Jack feigned an offended look and removed his hand from the wheel before stuffing the rest of his biscuit in his mouth. His hands went down to the sides of Chris' stomach, as if covering the unborn child's ears. "You wanf fo shatter hif confidenfe?" Pieces of biscuit sprayed out as he spoke, and his speech was slightly garbled.

Chris laughed, but as she did, a searing pain suddenly shot through her stomach. Chris doubled over and let out a moan of pain, and Jack spit his biscuit out in alarm. It landed as a soggy mess in Chris' hair, and Loki leapt off his perch, shrieking indignantly.

"Chris! What's wrong, love?" Jack asked, bending beside her.

"I have no bloody idea!" Chris said through clenched teeth. "Ah!" She held her stomach and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

"Oi! Rags, get over here, help me take Chris to our cabin!" Jack beckoned, gesturing for Ragetti to leave his place on the port side. Ragetti complied, and the two men supported the doubled over Chris down to the captain's cabin, where they laid her on the bed. Chris squeezed her eyes shut once more as she sank back on the bed, and when she opened them, she let out a sharp breath.

"I think the baby wants to come out." She moaned. She didn't know why, but she was pretty sure that's what was happening.

"It's too early!" Ragetti objected.

"I _BLOODY_ WELL KNOW _THAT_!" Chris exploded. Ragetti shied away to the door.

Jack took one of Chris' hands. "What do I do Chris? What should I do?" He asked softly.

Chris grimaced in pain. "I don't know, Jack, I don't know." She looked at her husband and swallowed hard. "Wait, I guess."

Anamaria took the helm and Jack directed her to sail for the nearest settlement, a French port named Montserrat. The port was small and poor, and Jack had Pintel raise false colors so that they would be able to sail into port and find a doctor with no trouble. At least, that's what Jack prayed for.

However, by sunset that night, Chris' pains had stopped. She decided, after much persuading of Jack, to go back to her watch, but after standing for a few minutes, the pains rushed back, and she was once again planted on the bed in the captain's cabin. The watches changed, and Jack pried himself away and left Chris in Athos' hands. Athos tried to keep Chris' mind off her stomach, but the entire mood of the ship had been darkened by Chris' pain. An early baby was one thing, but an early baby at sea? Chris would be lucky if she survived if such a thing happened, and the baby... While no one said anything, the minds upon the _Pearl_ were heavy with the thought.

The next morning when the _Black Pearl_ arrived at Montserrat, their colors were French and several of the pirates had dressed in civilian garb and went ashore to find a doctor, Jack included. Anamaria and Pintel stayed aboard with Chris. About midmorning, there was a slight scuffle on deck and Jack entered the captain's cabin, but he wasn't alone. The person he was pushing before him had their hands tied behind their back and a burlap bag pulled over their head.

"Oh Hell Sparrow!" Chris cursed, throwing her head back onto her pillow. "Couldn't ye have done something **besides** kidnapping?"

"He found us out! He's a Royal Navy doctor, so of course he knew the faces of wanted pirates, and I couldn't do anything but kidnap him!" Jack replied. He shoved the man forward and looked at Anamaria. "You make sure he behaves with Chris. Pintel, you come with me, we have to make sail." There was the sound of cannon fire and shouts from out on dead.

"_Oh Hell Sparrow_!" Chris repeated, blanching.

"Pint, come on!" Jack beckoned. Pintel left with Jack and Anamaria pulled the bag from the doctor's head. The doctor was over six feet tall and had a gaunt face and brown-blonde hair. Jack returned momentarily to toss the doctor his bag of medical supplies and a threatening glare before slamming the door. There was more cannon fire and the man loosened his collar and set his bag upon the end of the bed, looking at the pirate women warily.

"Well… This is awkward." He said, fumbling with the ties on his bag. "I'm uh… David Shoals." He began, and then looked at Chris. His hands shook slightly as he finished untying the ties. "Um… So what has been ailing you?"

"Pleased to meet you, Davy." Chris said before informing him of the pain she had felt. He nodded and asked a few questions before setting about to figure out what was wrong with her. Davy (as Chris would call the doctor even if he objected, which he didn't) performed his examination as the _Black Pearl_ sailed away from Montserrat and fired off a few shots, but nothing more than that. Once the _Pearl_ was safe from any pursuit, Jack returned to the cabin just in time for the doctor's diagnosis.

"She and the baby are under too much stress, and being around a lot of water encourages labor." Davy said, wringing his hands. "She either needs complete bed rest on this ship or she needs to be on land until she gives birth. Please don't shoot me."

Jack ignored the doctor's request and sat on the bed beside Chris. He took one of her hands and held it between his. "What do you want to do, love?" He questioned.

"I don't fancy leaving you." Chris replied, unexpected tears welling up in her eyes. Angry at herself, she batted them away. _Stop acting like such a damned woman_!

"Do you fancy observing the ceiling for the next four months?" Jack queried, wiping one of her tears away.

Chris swallowed hard and did her best to sound determined, but her voice came out huffy and childlike. "…Yes."

"Chris, girl." Jack pulled her up against his chest. Davy uncomfortably shifted from foot to foot. "All that matters is that ye and the baby are safe. And since ye are acting like a woman, most unnatural of ye I must say," He winked at her, "I think ye should kip with Sarah and Jocelyn in Tortuga. Savvy?"

"I don't want to…" Jack squeezed her tightly at her words and said nothing. After a few minutes, she heaved a heavy sigh and Chris moaned in his chest, "Alright."

Jack turned to Davy and said, "So, Doc, since ye seem to be in a rather precarious position right now, having aided pirates…" The doctor gulped as Jack continued, "What say I give ye a good amount of gold to stay with me wife here and another pregnant woman for the next few months?"

Davy looked to Chris, then Jack, then to Anamaria who was watching him with arms crossed. "I… I suppose I don't have a choice, do I?"

"No, you have a choice." Jack said. "It's just a choice between being outcast by the Royal Navy and court marshaled for helping us, or you could continue to practice as a doctor and earn a good haul while doing it." He paused and said, "Or, as to the present, it's the choice between getting wet or staying dry, savvy?"

Davy licked his lips and then said, "Just how good of a haul would we be talking about?"

Jack smiled to himself. Sure, the man may have been employed by the Royal Navy, but he seemed to exhibit the characteristics of a pirate with very little prodding. "Five percent of our haul plus a flat fee for each month ye stay with the girls."

"Agreed." Davy said, beginning to replace his instruments into his bag.

Jack stopped him for a moment. "I want ye to be certain, Davy, that if ye hurt either of the lasses… Ye won't need a doctor. Ye'll need an undertaker, savvy?"

Davy blanched and nodded. "Of course sir. Of course."

The _Black _Pearl then sailed to Tortuga where it let Chris, Loki, and Davy disembark. The pirates were only given a night of shore leave, long enough for Ragetti to see his girl and Jack to explain their predicament to Jocelyn and Sarah. In her short time at the Faithful Bride, Jocelyn had been put in charge of it and only answered directly to the owner. She acquired a private room for she, Jack, Chris, Davy, Sarah, and Ragetti to talk in, and it was settled that Chris and Davy would live in Sarah's recently procured cottage, for Jocelyn and the children lived above the tavern and only had enough room for the five of them, and Jocelyn figured her sister-in-law would want privacy that staying in a tavern room below didn't provide. When that was settled, they returned to the front room of the Faithful Bride and each couple set to enjoying their last night together for the foreseeable future.

The next morning, Sarah and Chris watched the _Black Pearl_ sail away with heavy hearts from the docks. Sarah mourned the fact that Ragetti would most likely be away when their child was born in two month's time, and Chris was mourning the fact she had to leave the _Black Pearl_ sooner than expected. "Ye better be worth it, little one." She said flatly to her stomach before she and Sarah returned to the Faithful Bride.

The cottage that Sarah lived in was located out of the crowded streets of Tortuga. It was right on the water front in a place where a ship could anchor and not risk becoming beached. Next to the cottage stood a black oak tree, which looked foreign among the tropical trees that dotted the tree line. Inside the cottage there was a front room which also served as the kitchen and three separated bedrooms lay behind it. The privy was outside back into the tree-line, and the largest bedroom held a fireplace, which was the only source of heat besides the cooking fire in the front room.

In the cottage, the next two months passed quickly, and Sarah gave birth to a son early one morning. She neglected to give him a name until Ragetti came home for they hadn't decided upon a name before he left. For the time being, all the occupants of the cottage took to calling him, "Little Rags." Evenings in the cottage were quite happy with the new baby around, and the three adults took turns rocking and feeding him. At least a few nights a week, Jocelyn and the children would come to visit and they would all have dinner together. As time progressed, Chris was almost certain that she saw Davy and Jocelyn taking a shine to each other, but of course no one said anything about it.

As Chris' stomach grew bigger, it came to pass that she had to succumb to wearing a loose gown to keep modestly clothed, in spite of her wishes or protests. The simple fact was that she could not find a pair of trousers that would fit comfortably, and she had eventually patched her old trousers so much in the passing months that she was disgusted with them, so she and Sarah and Jocelyn sewed a cotton dress for her that was large enough to comfortably tent two people.

While Chris did miss Jack, she also found the entire process of pregnancy fascinating. It was so odd and yet so wonderful to know that inside of her, Jack's child was growing. She didn't give it a gender, but every time the baby moved or kicked, she was reminded that she carried a small part of Jack with her. As she grew bigger, she started to wonder whether the baby would have Jack's hair or her eyes or Jack's mischievous smile. Many afternoons were spent wondering whether the baby would possess Jack's tendency to exaggerate or Chris' ability to spout long-winded insults.

One day when Chris was eight months along, Davy came in from going into Tortuga for supplies and announced, "When I left port, there was a ship on the horizon with black sails." The two women almost bowled him over as Sarah retrieved a cracked long glass and the pair raced to the top of a small hill that covered the view of Tortuga from the cottage. Once they had scaled the hill, Sarah handed the long glass to Chris and she put it to her eye.

A ship was indeed on the horizon. It was not heading for the docks but was pointing towards the cottage. Chris was pretty sure she spotted Ragetti in the crow's nest, but her eyes searched for the lettering that would spell the name of the ship. Her expectations were met when she saw the _Black Pearl_ written upon the hull. She lowered the long glass and looked at Sarah, her mouth cracked open in a smile. "It's them."

Sarah and Chris returned to the cottage, and after Little Ragetti was plucked from his crib, his mother, Chris, and Davy went to wait the arrival of the ship. The _Pearl_ sailed as close as she could without running around and then the call came for both of the anchors to drop. Chris was so excited to see her husband and her friends that goose bumps rippled up her arms and she felt the baby inside of her kick. She watched as the sails were released from the yardarms and hit the deck, and she wondered if Jack was deliberately teasing not only her, but Sarah as well in having the pirates take their sweet time before disembarking. And just why were they releasing the sails?

Chris received an answer half an hour later when the sailors of the _Black Pearl_ were tendered ashore along with barrels of drink and food. "We're here to stay for the winter!" Jack called as he leaped from his jolly boat. He went to Chris and bent her backward (but not too far) in a kiss. When he released her, he touched her pregnant belly and said, "God, you've put on weight." He braced himself for the punch to the shoulder he received.

Meanwhile, Ragetti had not possessed the patience to wait for his jolly boat to bump ashore. He leaped out of the boat and swam to meet his wife. Even though he was dripping wet as he pulled himself from the ocean, he embraced his wife only to jerk away in alarm when Little Ragetti let out a squeal. Ragetti's eyes boggled and his wooden one almost left its socket as Sarah presented the baby to him. "This is your son."

His hands shaking, Ragetti reached forward and gently took the babe into his hands. Father and son looked down at each other, bemused looks in their eyes for a moment before Ragetti crowed, "I have a son!" He turned to those still in the jolly boats and hoisted the baby over his head. "My son!" He cried. The baby replied by letting out an un-Godly wail.

Once all the sailors were ashore, they set about to erecting tents or building huts in which they could pass the winter. Sarah and Ragetti talked about what to name their son before finally deciding on "Thomas" in time for his christening to be celebrated with drafts of rum and hot food.

That evening, Chris and Jack shared the same bed for the first time in months inside the cottage. Since his arrival, Chris' husband seemed absolutely obsessed with her stomach. Once they climbed into bed, Jack placed his head against Chris' swollen belly and began murmuring to it. His wife tried to ignore him constantly kissing her swollen belly and poking it here and there by reading a book he had given to her named "Paradise Lost" by a man named John Milton. At first she had welcomed his attention, but when it became incessant, she started to get annoyed. Her ignorance of him worked pretty well at first, but when Jack began vibrating his lips against her stomach, Chris dropped her book onto her chest and propped herself up on her arms. She looked down to him and demanded, "What the bloody_ Hell _are you doing?"

"I was telling him a story. You're going to make him miss the best part." Jack gave Chris a reproachful look and went back to his story. "…And then they made me their chief." Jack tenderly rubbed her stomach. "Yeah? You like that?" He asked. Chris pursed her lips, rolled her eyes, and plucked the book from her chest. She closed it and whacked Jack on the head. "_OW_!" Jack scowled up at her. As he rubbed the top of his head, he looked back to her stomach. "Jack-Jack, when ye grow up and become a great man like me, watch out for the wenches like your mother. They'll kick ye in the jewels and laugh as ye roll around on the ground in pain."

"And don't forget it!" Chris replied before returning to her book.

Weeks later, Athos, Gibbs and Chris found themselves in the tree line behind the cottage. Athos had climbed to the top of a coconut tree, despite the absence of his leg (he didn't much care for the wooden appendage that had been made for him, so more often than not he travelled with his crutch), and pulled several coconuts from the top of the tree and threw them to the ground. Gibbs picked the felled coconuts up and placed them in the burlap bag Chris held. Chris had become – to put it very, _very_ nicely – colossal. In order to turn around without breaking/knocking into anything or harming herself, she needed three feet of clearance in every direction. Because of the imminent birth of their child, Jack had confined her to the cottage 'for her own good,' but this day Chris had been able to convince Gibbs and Athos to let her tag along with them on the search for coconuts. Jack had headed into Tortuga to see Jocelyn and the children, so Chris knew that as long as she and the two men made it back before Jack, he'd be none the wiser. Gibbs, of course, was very wary of taking her with them, but Athos helped her case by shaking his crutch threateningly at the first mate.

As the empty room inside the bag became totally filled with coconuts, Athos shimmied down the tree and retrieved his crutch from against the trunk. "You think Jack's back yet?" Athos asked.

"No," Chris replied. "I can tell because there isn't any cannon fire or cries of the wounded from back in the direction of the cottage." Athos laughed, but Gibbs didn't look too amused. Chris wondered if he was as worried as Jack was about her.

"I'll lead the way and use my crutch to try and fend him off if we're mistaken." Athos said, winking at Chris before he headed up the trail leading back to the cottage first. Chris and Gibbs followed.

"Lemme take that Chris, ye have enough weight lugging around that stomach." Gibbs offered, pulling the bag from Chris' hands.

"Thanks for that last part, Gibbs. How ye never married I can only wonder." Chris replied, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

"If it's any consolation, I think Jack's done his best to gain some sympathy weight." Gibbs offered.

"Aye, he's gettin' a bit chubby." Athos called behind him.

"What would Jack say if he –" Chris said, and then she felt the spray of water on her bare feet. She looked below to find that she was suddenly standing in a puddle. "Looks like we'll have to wash our feet before we get in the cottage, lads, else Jack will know I was out with you –" She continued walking.

"Why?" Athos asked.

"Because of that puddle ye so conveniently didn't tell me about, mate." Chris replied, turning back and pointing at the puddle in the dirt path.

"Chris, I didn't step over or see any puddle." Athos replied, turning to look at her. Chris suddenly realized that the material around her sensitive areas was soaking wet.

"I – Uh…" Chris looked at the puddle and her skirt and then said, "Oh bollocks."

"Chris, do you need –" Gibbs asked, stepping to her side and preparing to support her.

"No, I don't feel anything." Chris said, taking a step forward. "Let's just get back to the cottage. Jack's going to kill me."

The three had traveled another hundred yards when Chris' first contraction pulsed through her body. She let out a cry and doubled over. She clutched her stomach and gasped. "Keep goin' Athos!" Gibbs demanded before crossing to Chris and slipping an arm under her legs and one around her back. He picked her up with a grunt and said, "Don't say anything Chris. No offense, but don't try that damned 'I'm a big tough woman' routine unless you want to have your baby in the middle of the wilderness."

"Done." Chris replied and cried out as another contraction rippled through her. Chris would later marvel at just how fast Gibbs moved despite carrying a rather cumbersome pregnant woman. He overtook Athos and left the poor one-legged man to gimp after them in effort to catch up.

When they arrived at the cabin, Gibbs almost kicked the door in trying to get someone to open it. Sarah was the one to do so, and Gibbs charged right in, calling, "Doc! Doc, we got a baby coming!"

"What?" Sarah asked.

"Chris' water broke in the trees, and we need the doc and whoever else feels like helping in her bedroom now!" With that, Gibbs carried Chris into the aforementioned bedroom and laying her gently on the bed. "Once the doc gets in, I'm gonna go get Jack, alright?"

Chris nodded. "Thank you, Gibbs. I shouldn't have bullied you and Athos to take me."

"No, you shouldn't have." Gibbs replied. He laughed and thumbed her cheek. "Now chin up, ye're going to be a mum today." Davy entered the room with his medical bag, Anamaria following behind him with a bucket of water, and Gibbs left to go find Jack.

Anamaria helped Chris change from her soiled dress into one of her old shirts, since she didn't really need bottoms anymore. Davy timed the contractions and was startled that they were already five minutes apart after Chris had experience no pain the entire morning. Jack arrived about half an hour after Gibbs had left and, by the sounds coming from the front room, he brought Jocelyn and the children with him. He entered the room with Loki on his shoulder and saw Chris clutching Anamaria's hand. He immediately crossed to the bed.

"Thank you, Ana." Jack breathed. Anamaria gave Chris' hand one last squeeze before releasing it and joining Davy at the foot of the bed. Jack knelt beside the bed and took both of Chris' hands. "Can you believe we're going to be parents?" He asked. Chris took a gulp of air and shrugged as another contraction ran its course. "Well… I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I feel like running out of the room screaming." Chris punched Jack in the shoulder. "Ow. But I'm not going to do that, because you know who I am? Captain. Jack. Sparrow. Aye, that's who I am." Even that didn't sound as confident as it usually did coming from Jack's mouth. He kissed Chris' perspiring forehead and Loki crawled from his shoulder to the headboard.

"Loki…" Chris said, looking up at him. He gave out a low coo and Chris gave a dry chuckle. A monkey was going to watch her give birth.

"Keep it together for just a little while longer, love." Jack bade. He held his wife's hand for the next few hours as her contractions came closer and closer together.

An hour after the sun set, Chris' contractions were right on top of each other. Davy checked her (after a few mild threats from Jack that he should 'be all business down there') and announced it was time. Jack pulled a bottle of rum from underneath the bed and uncorked it with his teeth. "Just where did you get that?" Chris gasped as he took a long swig.

"I stowed it under the bed days ago, because I knew at least one of us would need it." Jack replied, taking another swig.

"Um, Captain Sparrow?" Davy asked hesitantly. "You – You may want to stop drinking and hold her hand…?"

Jack sighed and corked the bottle. "If you insist." He slipped his hand into Chris' and asked, "You ready?" She nodded and Jack kissed her cheek. Chris clenched Jack's hand as she gave her first push. Jack's face became very red, but he said nothing. By her third push, however, her knuckles turned white with the power of the squeeze and Jack let out a yell. He switched hands long enough to pull his rings from his fingers and then replaced his hand.

Anamaria danced by behind Davy, ready to fetch anything the doctor needed. Chris felt a wave of gratitude sweep over her for Anamaria. They weren't exactly close friends, but to have her stand by while she was in the labor of childbirth meant quite a bit.

"I can see the head!" Davy called after a few moments. "Keep pushing Chris!"

Chris' face was all red and she was dotted with perspiration. She turned to look at Jack and growled, "Sparrow, you are never putting that damn thing in me ever again!"

Jack couldn't help but smirk. "Don't count on –" Chris' hand flexed and Jack cried out. "_OW_! Oh Hell, she **broke my hand**! AHH God!" Jack pulled his hand from Chris' grip and kissed it, moaning in pain. "God girl!"

"What'd I say?" Chris cried. Jack took a guzzle of rum and took the opportunity to peek at the birthing process. He blanched and finished off the rest of the bottle before returning to Chris. "What did you see?" Chris gasped.

"Believe me, you do _not_ want to know." Jack replied, placing his hand back in hers.

"One more push!" Davy called. Chris inhaled deeply and pushed, her hand shaking in Jack's. "Yes! Yes, yes that's it – You can – Yes, yes, you can stop now." Davy called. Chris collapsed back onto her sweat-soaked pillow with a relieved sigh as cries emanated from the foot of the bed. Loki, from his perch on the headboard, looked at her and chirped. Chris grinned and looked down to where Davy stood.

The doctor cleared the amniotic fluid and mucus from the baby's nose and mouth, and the baby cried harder. Wails filled the cabin as the baby's lungs expanded with its first few breaths of air. Chris could see that the baby had dark hair and was covered in a milky white substance and fluid.

"Ye did great love." Jack whispered to Chris, kissing her hot and sweaty forehead, and then added, in almost a sing-song, "We have a baby!"

"I need something to wrap –" Davy said to Anamaria. She quickly snatched Jack's coat from the back of the door.

"Oh bollocks Ana!" Jack objected, but it was too late. Davy wrapped the babe in Jack coat and walked to the mother and father.

"Say 'Hello' to your daughter." Davy said, gently passing the little girl into Chris' arms.

"So much for 'Jack the second,' eh?" Chris commented to Jack, almost laughing, but then both of their attention turned to their daughter. She looked up at them with curious blue eyes, just like Chris, and she possessed a head full of onyx hair like Jack's. Immediately, Chris fell in love with her. She never knew that her heart could love something so much so instantly. Right then, Chris knew that no matter what this little girl ever did in or with her life that she would love her daughter forever.

"'Ello little lass!" Jack said, his voice raising a pitch. Chris looked at him oddly, but so did their daughter, as if she recognized his voice. "Chris, don't ye laugh at me," Jack began, wiggling his fingers at the baby, "But… I really, really want to name her Pearl. She's… She's as beautiful as a pearl… She **is** our own little pearl."

"Ye want to name her after a ship?" Chris asked incredulously.

"What do I love on earth more than that ship?" Jack asked, and then quickly added, "And you?"

Chris rolled her eyes. "Then by that merit, I think we should name her after Gibbs."

"What?" Jack asked, his eyes narrowed in confusion.

Chris then realized that Gibbs had probably not told him exactly where she was when her water broke. She felt like putting her foot in her mouth, but under current circumstances that was probably not the most wise or comfortable idea. "What?" She echoed. Jack pulled his head back and looked at her sideways. Chris offered no explanation.

"Alright then, Chris." Jack said, reaching down to curl one finger around the baby's little hand. "How do ye like 'Pearl Joshamina?'" He asked the baby. "Hmm, Pearly-girl?"

Even though Chris knew that someday their daughter may want to kill her father for such a name, she could not argue. The name strangely fit their daughter, their little treasure. Chris looked down and smiled. "Welcome to the family, Pearl."

oOo

They didn't have you where I come from  
Never knew the best was yet to come  
Life began when I saw your face  
And I hear your laugh like a serenade

How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough, is forever enough?  
How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough?  
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

I slip in bed when you're asleep  
To hold you close and feel your breath on me  
Tomorrow there'll be so much to do  
So tonight I'll drift in a dream with you

How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough, is forever enough?  
How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough?  
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

As you wander through this troubled world  
In search of all things beautiful  
You can close your eyes when you're miles away  
And hear my voice like a serenade

How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough, is forever enough?  
How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough?  
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough, is forever enough  
How long do you want to be loved  
Is forever enough?  
Cause I'm never, never giving you up  
Is forever enough?  
Cause I'm never, never giving you up


	22. Chesed's Message !

**Chapter Twenty-Two  
Chesed's Message**

The day after Pearl was born the new family received an unexpected visitor. About half-way through the midday meal, Captain Teague Sparrow entered without knocking, and demanded, "Alright then, where's my new grandbaby?"

Chris gave a bewildered look to her husband, Ragetti, and Sarah. With the baby being born and doing well, Davy had headed into Tortuga to find a room for the winter before either trying to return to civilization or deciding to take a spot as the surgeon of the _Black Pearl_, and all of the other pirates were camped outside. She looked back to her father-in-law and asked, "How the Hell did you even know?"

"Sea turtles." He responded bluntly.

"He does have a point." Jack replied. Pearl was cradled in his arms, sleeping. Chris shot him an incredulous look as Jack gingerly stood, doing his best not to wake the sleeping baby, and walked from behind the table to his father. "This here is Pearl, Pop." He said, handing the small baby to his father.

Teague cradled Pearl like she was the rarest treasure he had ever had the pleasure to touch. He stared down at the sleeping infant and then looked back up at Jack. "Oh, she is well met, well met indeed."

For about the first week after Pearl's birth, neither Jack nor Chris received much sleep, what with Teague being there, Jocelyn and the children dropping in randomly, the other pirates also stopped in to see the progeny of Captain Jack Sparrow, and Thomas seemed to decide to wake up and cry whenever Pearl seemed content to sleep. However, there came a night where it seemed that Teague wasn't going to be loud and both babies were going to cooperate and let their parents receive a good night's rest. Jack and Chris were asleep before their heads hit the pillows of their bed.

Hours later in the dark, Chris sensed that Jack was no longer sleeping beside her. She opened her eyes, blinking a few times before they focused in the dark. She saw that Jack's side of the bed was indeed empty, and so was the rough wooden cradle in which Pearl had slept. Chris almost immediately panicked, but then she saw that Jack was sitting next to the window, Pearl cradled in his arms. The baby was looking up into her father's face, rapt with attention, as he rocked her back and forth. Underneath his breath, he was singing the verses of, "A Pirate's Life for Me."

Chris smiled to herself and swallowed hard. She did the best that she could to engrain the image into her memory for the rest of eternity as she watched. She did her best to remember the sound of Jack's voice, the expression on Pearl's face, and the smell of the wood in the room. Then, without making any other noise or movement, she closed her eyes and allowed her husband and daughter to have their moment.

Soon enough, Pearl was four months old and winter was over. All the ships in Tortuga's harbor left in an explosion of waves, hulls, and sails on the first warm day with a good wind. That day, Jack announced that the _Black_ _Pearl_ would sail once the waterways were not crowded. Chris smiled from where she sat with Pearl in her arms and said, "It'll be good to be back on the sea. My legs are getting too heavy on this rock."

Jack looked uncomfortable, his eyes darting from Gibbs to her. "Chris, let's go into our room." He bade. Chris immediately felt foreboding. Jack hardly ever wanted to speak privately with her, and now that he did after her mention of returning to the sea… Chris stood and crossed to her room, Jack following. He closed the door behind him as Chris laid Pearl in her crib and gave her a small coconut Athos had made into a rattle for her. Athos had hollowed out the coconut and then put several beans inside before sealing it up again with wax. It soon became one of Pearl's favorite toys, and an object of envy of Loki's. Indeed, he was atop the headboard and staring daggers at Pearl as she shook the rattle about.

"Chris…" Jack began, holding two fingers to his lips and pacing ever so slightly. "I think ye and Pearl should stay here."

Chris set her lips in a straight line. "Why?" She demanded.

"Well, Pearly's a bit too young for sailin', don't ye think?" Jack asked.

Chris stared at her husband. "Jack. She's a baby. She won't be sailing!"

"Chris, that's not what I meant." Jack replied, rubbing the corners of his eyes using the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. He placed both hands together and pointed at Chris. "I think we should wait until she gets just a little bit older before we bring her aboard the _Pearl_. And I think ye should stay here until that time."

Chris could feel the blood rising in her face. She bit her tongue so that she wouldn't let out one of her long-winded insults. She looked at her bare feet and then back up at Jack, counting to ten before she spoke. "And I think that's just – poppycock!" Jack raised his eyebrows at the word and Chris continued. "It won't matter how old she is and – _damn_ _it_, _Sparrow_, I'm closing in on a year ashore! Don't you think I might be goin' a little stir crazy?"

"Aye. But don't ye think our daughter deserves a little peace before being put onto a ship that participates in sea battles and before she runs the risk of being hurt?" Jack asked. His question cut like a knife, and he knew it. Chris became uncertain, for she hadn't thought of that possibility. Jack took advantage of her silence. "I'm just askin' for another winter, love, and then both of ye can come aboard."

Chris swallowed hard. "That also means we're not going to be together. Again. Can you handle that, Jack?" She wouldn't admit that she didn't think she could if he didn't.

Jack's face possessed a neutral expression. "I'll manage."

Chris furrowed her brow and felt like kicking something, but somehow she knew that no matter how she might protest or whine, Jack would find some way to leave Chris and Pearl on shore. "Take Loki with you." She said simply. "If he stays ashore for much longer, he'll go mad."

Jack smiled softly. "I will."

Four days later, Chris and Pearl said goodbye to Jack and Loki and the rest of the pirates. Davy ended up signing on as the _Pearl_'s surgeon, which was a pretty cushy job on the pirate ship. Chris wasn't afraid of the possibility of Davy not being present in Tortuga, for there was always Doctor Baloo nearby if Pearl became sick. She was mostly worried about how she would survive months without Jack. _You've done it once before, girl, you can do it again. Chin up._

Things fell into a usual pattern. Chris would wake when Pearl did, feed her, feed herself, carry Pearl to Tortuga and back to see Jocelyn or earn a bit of money at the Faithful Bride, feed Pearl, have something for lunch with Sarah and Thomas, read or write something, feed Pearl, help Sarah make dinner, eat dinner, feed Pearl, put Pearl to bed, think of what Jack was doing, and then drift off to sleep. Jack did not return in a month, two months, or three months even and Chris began to become worried that he had been captured, or the _Pearl_ blown to pieces, or who knew? Maybe even a mutiny was possible. Since she had no information, her imagination ran wild. Her only comfort was in spending time alone with her daughter, watching her grow, and imagining how Jack would react when he saw how big Pearl had become and how smart she was.

One morning when Pearl was eight months old, Chris was out back splitting wood in front of the cottage. She was wearing her trousers and shirt, for Chris was once again able to fit into regular clothes, and her bandana kept her hair and sweat from getting into her eyes as she chopped. She had Sarah had an agreement that as long as Chris provided the wood to cook on, Sarah would provide the meals. Sarah was inside preoccupied with Thomas and Pearl. The two mothers knew it wasn't exactly the wisest idea to have two babies around a swinging axe. Chris tossed her two pieces of freshly split wood onto the pile before grabbing another piece. She positioned the wedge over what would be the heart of the piece of wood and tapped it in enough so that the metal wedge would stand on its own. She raised her axe to hit the wedge with the blunt end of the axe.

A **crack** suddenly sounded through the air and Chris paused in letting the axe drop. She was sure that had been the sound of a pistol firing, and then the movement in the tree line behind the cabin confirmed it as she saw the navy blue and red coats of Royal Navy officers and Marines in the foliage.

"Marak, you idiot!" Someone hissed and she saw that Admiral Chesed was in the trees, with Marak at his side. Chesed cuffed Marak's ears and called for his men to aim. Her axe was still raised and she did not know what to do. How did Chesed get to Tortuga unnoticed? Further more, how did he find her?

"Stop right there and we won't shoot!" One of the Marines warned, dropping to his knee and hugging his musket to his shoulder. Chris knew that if she moved fast enough, his aim would be obscured by the foliage of the trees, for they weren't yet clear of the jungle. But then again, could she make it around the cabin without getting shot? She eyed the window that led into Sarah's room and made a very rash, and on reflection, stupid decision. She flung the axe towards those in the trees and leaped through the window with her arms covering her head. She heard the crack of gunfire behind her as the glass shattered and she sailed through the window, landing on Sarah's bed in a spray of blood and glass.

There was silence from the front room, and for a moment Chris feared that the Royal Navy sailors and Marines had already gotten to Sarah. She rolled off of the bed, ignoring the rivulets of blood that streamed down her arms, and entered the front room. Sarah and the children were at the table and they looked scared and wary. Chris let out a sigh of relief as Sarah asked, "Chris what – Was that shattering noise **you**?"

"Sarah, no time – There is no less than two dozen Royal Navy sailors in the tree line." Chris peered out of the windows of the front room and saw no one around the front of the cottage. Yet.

"What are we going to do, Chris?" Sarah asked, her already pale complexion instantly draining of whatever pigment was left in it.

Chris bit her lip. The wrong decision could make them all end up dead, but it was already looking that way. "Pick up Tommy and Pearl, if I get Pearl bloody it may only make her scream. First we need to blockade the doors to make it harder for them to get in the house." Pearl and Thomas were set on two chairs while Sarah and Chris used the table and all other furniture to blockade the front door and the door leading to Sarah's room. Chris was leaving trails of blood on the floor, and she then realized if she lost too much blood she wouldn't be of any use to Sarah or the children. She picked out the shards of glass that were embedded in her flesh with her fingers and then she wrapped her arms with dishtowels before she and Sarah went into her bedroom.

"This is what I think we should do." Chris said as she and Sarah moved a chest of drawers to block the door. "You take the kids up the chimney and I'll distract them in here, alright? You get away, the wood pile's tall enough for you to climb off of the roof with, get to Tortuga, and get to Jocelyn. She'll know enough men to send this way to make Chesed and his men wish they had never tainted the soil of Tortuga by setting foot on it, alright?"

Sarah was shaking. "Chris, what could you possibly do?" She whispered. She was holding Pearl and Thomas who seemed to understand that it would be best for them to be quiet. All of the sudden there came a call for the door to be broken down from outside. That was actually a relief to Chris – She had feared that they would try to burn down the cottage with her, Sarah, and the children inside.

"I have my rapier and a brace of pistols." Chris pulled the aforementioned weapons out from underneath the bed. The dishtowels fell from her arms, but she was not bleeding as profusely as before "But ye need to make sure that our kiddies are safe, alright? Trust me." Sarah nodded and Chris looked down to Pearl. "Pearly, sweetie, I need you to be real quiet and go with Auntie Sarah, can you do that? We're going to play a game." It suddenly occurred to Chris that the lie could be the last thing she ever said to her daughter. She and Sarah were vastly outnumbered, and there was a good chance – _No, stop it_. "I love you, sweetheart." She kissed Pearl on the head as she heard the front room's door rip from its hinges. "Go, Sarah!"

Sarah balanced both children in one arm and, with Chris' help, climbed into the fireplace and up the rungs inside. Chris had no idea how Sarah was going to get down from the roof without alarming Chesed's men to her presence, but that was the least of her problems right now. She strapped the brace of pistols onto her torso and strapped her rapier about her waist as the door began to be impacted upon. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears and bile rising in her throat from fear. The blood on her arms seemed to be very hot. _Lord, I know I haven't been your most devout servant. Hell, I'm pretty close to a Godless thief, but remember that Christ's companion when he hung on the cross was a thief, so we aren't that different, me and him. Just please protect my daughter, and Sarah, and Thomas. They don't deserve whatever may happen to me._

Chris was jarred from her reverie by the door opening and the dresser being shoved to the side. She was ready for it. Marines made to file inside, but she drew two pistols and fired, hitting two of the Marines. They fell to the floor as her spent pistols did, and she drew two more and fired them. Only one of the shots found its mark, and at that moment, Chris launched herself over the wounded and into the stream of Marines. The wounded groaned and cried out as Chris' bare feet landed on them and Chris punched the first fresh Marine she found, breaking his nose. Blood sprayed from his snout as Chris swiveled around him and planted her foot in the groin of a second Marine. A third had latched onto her hair while she had kicked, but she twisted around like a mad animal and bit his hand, hard. He cried out and let go and Chris went to lunge into the next Marine.

However, someone had grabbed Chris' leg and she fell to the floor. She kicked with all of her might, clawed, and snapped her teeth at anything that moved until the butt of a musket landed in her gut. The breath that was inside of her left and she doubled over instinctively. The single lapse in her fighting allowed more Marines to grab her and restrain her. Someone manacled her hands in front of her and another gagged her. Even though she thrashed about, her legs were bound with cord. Chris cursed vilely against her gag and gyrated about madly to try and escape the grabbing hands of the Marines, but it was all to no avail. They snatched her and picked her up, stepping over the wounded and carrying her out of the cottage. As they did, they pulled the brace of pistols from her torso and her rapier from around her waist, letting them fall into the sand, useless.

Chris saw that they were carrying her towards the black oak tree. It was taller than the cottage but still had branches within reach. It was probably the perfect tree for a hanging. Her stomach gave a shiver and she began working on chewing threw her gag. If they wanted to hang her, by God, she was going to curse them with every last breath in her body for doing it, gag or no. Upon arriving under the shadow of the black oak tree, Chris was set upon her feet in front of Chesed.

The admiral's blue eyes gleamed maniacally as he saw his prey, bound and gagged and already bloodied. Chris saw that Marak stood behind him, shuffling from foot to foot and staring at the ground. Her eyes bored into him. _How could you, Marak? You were a pirate, how could you just abandon your pirate brethren and fall in with the likes of him?_

"Christiana Sparrow isn't it?" Chesed asked, his voice light in tone but at the same time heavy with anger. "Yes, we were introduced last year, if I remember correctly." He snarled. "Your husband's been giving me some trouble the past few months. And since you are a pirate and readily available, I'd like you to give him a message for me." He reached forward and touched her chin, raising her face so that his eyes could look into hers. "Pity I couldn't administer a more personal punishment first, but I'm sure you're spoiled, and I wouldn't want to catch anything that Captain Jack Sparrow might have."

Chris jerked her face away from Chesed and fixed him with a Hellish glare. "Captain Jack Sparrow is a better man than you ever can hope to be, ye black hearted powder wetting canvas crab!" She screamed against her gag, but what came out was, "Cphn Jckf Sfrw if a befr mah fah fu efr cf hp fu fe, ye bflck hrftd pfer wfng cfs cfab!" Chesed simply smiled.

"Mr. Tate?" Chesed asked. His lieutenant walked forward, a stool beneath his arm from its place inside the cottage. "What's the tally?" Chesed asked.

"One dead, two wounded." Tate replied. _Good_, Chris thought, _at least I took one with me_.

"Carry on." Chesed commanded. Tate placed the chair on level ground beneath a thick limb of the tree above. Chris was poked forward to stand next to the stool as Chesed asked, "Did you find any others in the cottage?"

"No one." Tate replied. _Thank you, God!_ Tate lifted Chris up onto the stool as another sailor took out a coil of coarse thick rope and threw an end over the tree limb above. Chris knew then that she would be hung that day. She was gagged, bound, and outnumbered. Even if Sarah had reached Tortuga, it would take time for Jocelyn to get any help sent to the cottage. Chris watched the rope end be tied into a noose. If any help came, they would be lucky to find her body if Chesed didn't take it as a prize.

Chris then thought of Jack and Pearl. How would they get on without her? Would Jack feel guilty, having denied her the privilege to sail with him? Would Pearl grow up only knowing her mother through the tales and stories told by her father, Gibbs, Ragetti, and other sailors of the _Black Pearl_? Chris wasn't sorrowful that she was going to die; she figured everyone's time came and there was nothing they could do about it. She was sorrowful that Jack might blame himself and that Pearl would have to live a life without her mother.

The noose was slipped around Chris' neck and tightened so that it would take some effort to work a finger underneath the rope. The slack in the rope was pulled until the rope became taught and Chris found herself rising onto her tiptoes so that she could suck in a last few breaths before the stool would be kicked out. With all in readiness, Chesed took his place before the stool, looking up at her. "Christiana Sparrow, you have been found guilty of piracy," he began, his eyes glistening in an almost ethereal joy, "and you are condemned this day to hang by your neck until you are dead."

Out of the corner of her eye, Chris saw Marak flinch at the word 'dead,' but Chris kept her eyes affixed onto the admiral. He paused in speaking and walked forward a few steps. Chesed kept his eyes trained on the condemned pirate's and placed his foot on the stool. He jiggled it a bit, causing Chris to gag several times. She did not cry, she only revealed her thoughts to Chesed with one look from her eyes. The look plainly said, "Do it you bastard." Chris would not whimper, she would not plead through her gag. Instead, she met her fate with a face full of rage reserved for Mathias Chesed.

The admiral smiled and stepped back. "Give her a tiny bit of slack, Tate." His request was granted and Chris was able to stand on her feet once more. She didn't know what he was playing at, but Chesed smiled as he said the following words. "Hangman… Carry out the sentence."

The designated man nodded and stepped forward. Chris didn't look at him. She stared right into Chesed's cold blue eyes. The hangman kicked the stool out from under Chris and the rope cracked loudly as she plummeted down a mere foot. The recoil jolted Chris' body and the rope tightened around her neck. She felt her skin burn as the rope constricted, and she found that she could not breathe. She gagged and tried to swallow, but she couldn't even do that.

Chris swayed back and forth on the end of the rope and found that Chesed had given her just enough slack so that the tip of her toes could graze the ground, but not find any refuge. In vain, she tried to find anything that could give her a footing, but the ground was level and true. Chris' eyes began watering as her lungs began convulsing for oxygen that couldn't come. Her throat was burning as well as her lungs. She realized suddenly that her hands were manacled in front of her, and they flew up to try and find a way to loosen the rope, but her fingernails scrabbled against the fibers futilely. Dried blood from the cuts on her arms made her fingers sticky and stained the rope.

Chris looked to the admiral as her vision blurred, and she wanted nothing more than to make a sound, a challenge to Chesed, and she wanted to wipe that smug grin off of that bastard's face. She kicked on the rope a few times, as if trying to coax the rope to break or her body to lower, but nothing happened. She made no noise, but her arms suddenly went limp, followed by the rest of her body.

Chris slumped on the rope and stared at the ground as her rope began to spin her around. Everything was becoming cozy and wonderful, like slipping into a warm bath, or being curled up in a warm bed on a harsh winter's night. The world was spinning, and her vision was darkening. Her last conscious thoughts were that she thought she heard cracking noises and angry shouts, but why'd everybody have to be so angry all the time…

Just as Chris began to slump, Marak did something that surprised all present. He let out a yell and drew his pistol and sword at the same time. "You'll not take her!" He cried before firing a shot into the hangman's chest. Chesed's lips parted in surprise as Marak jumped into the air, chopping at the rope. One chop frayed it, but by then the sailors and Marines had drawn their swords and were circling Marak. Chesed had drawn his own sword and was closest to the still hanging Chris and Marak as the man turned upon him.

"So it's a filthy little turncoat, is it?" Chesed snarled. "I should have figured after that 'outlaw' camp turned out to be nothing." He raised his sword. "I'll be only too glad to hang you next!"

At that moment, there was the call of, "FIRE!" and there was the crack of muskets being discharged. Chesed ducked as several of his men received bullets in the chest and reeled backward. Marak took his opportunity to chop at the rope from which Chris dangled and it snapped. She hit the ground like a bag of potatoes and Marak fell to his knees.

Meanwhile, Chesed looked for the source of the bullets and saw that a horde of pirates had fired their muskets and pistols and were in the meantime charging towards the black oak tree, swords and hatchets and daggers brandished. In the lead was none other than Captain Jack Sparrow and he, for lack of a better term, looked pissed. "Retreat!" Chesed ordered, and he was the first of his men to flee.

Marak pulled the rope from Chris' throat and slapped her across the face. She didn't move. He pulled the gag from her mouth before holding his ear to her lips. No breath was coming in our out. The man with different colored eyes blanched and shook her. "Chris wake up!" He demanded. She did no such thing. The only thing Marak could think to do was try to blow her lungs up with air. He had seen it performed only once or twice before, but he had to try. He bent over her and pinched her nose shut before joining their lips together. His cheeks puffed out as he blew into her mouth and then he struck her on the chest several times. The third time he did the motion, he was promptly struck by something hard and metallic. He fell backward as Jack raised his sword again, this time aiming to strike the man with the point, not the hilt.

"I'm trying to save her life!" Marak objected, putting up his hands. "I'm the one who cut her down!" Jack paused in his movement to impale Marak and looked to his wife lying on the ground. Jack dropped his sword, and Marak rolled. The sword narrowly missed impaling the man and instead stuck straight into the ground.

Jack took his wife into his arms, and his fingers touched the red mark left by the rope around her neck and the dried blood upon her arms. Jack saw that she was not breathing, and he began to panic. "No! Chris, no, no!" Jack cried, shaking her, "Damn it, girl, we did not go through everything the past few years for you to die now!"

Marak crawled next to Jack and said, "Breathe into her mouth so that her lungs blow up." Marak reached forward and pinched her nose shut and Jack eyed him with a somber face. "Do you want her to die?" Marak demanded.

Jack pressed his lips to Chris and inhaled deeply through his nose before blowing the air into her mouth. Her chest rose, and so did Jack's hope. He did it again and again until suddenly Chris convulsed and rolled her head back as she coughed and gasped. She inhaled a deep, shaky breath and her eyes opened and focused on Jack. "Are we dead?" She asked and then made a choking sound. Her throat felt as though it was on fire with every breath she took, and speaking was like someone pouring acid down her esophagus. She coughed again as she took another breath.

Jack reached forward, putting one hand on her back and the other on her neck so that he could hold her close. "No we aren't. Not yet anyway." He laughed dryly.

"Pearl?" Chris asked.

"She's with Jocelyn at the tavern, she's safe." Jack replied, cradling his wife in his arms.

He and the _Black Pearl_ had just made berth when Sarah came running down to the Faithful Bride, a baby in each arm and out of breath. "Chesed's men are at the cottage!" She gasped. "Chris is still there!" That was all Jack needed to hear. He called for his crew to follow him, and they picked up a good amount of fellow pirates along the way, and those who had tagged along were now fanning out to find any Marines or Navy Sailors lurking behind.

"Davy! Here, now!" Jack ordered, pointing to the ground upon which he kneeled. The doctor came over and fell to the ground in a splay of limbs. "Take care of her, alright?" He kissed her and gently laid her on the ground. He pulled his sword from the sand and shoved it into its scabbard.

"Where are you going?" She rasped.

Jack grabbed Marak by the shoulder and pulled him to his feet. "We're going to take care of Chesed, aren't we Marak?" He asked.

Marak looked at Jack in surprise and then his face cleared. "Yes. Yes! The _Titan_ is anchored in a cove not far from here."

"Good." Jack snatched his pistol from his sash and trained it on Marak. "Lead the way." He said, his voice low and gravelly. Marak was not expecting that turn of circumstances, and his face widened in surprise. "Come on mates!" Jack called to the other pirates before prodding Marak before him.

As they moved through the jungle swiftly but quietly, Marak began whispering to Jack. "Are you going to kill me when all is said and done?"

"Depends." Jack replied, nudging the man forward. "I don't really have respect for any men who aid Admiral Mathias Chesed. Plus you and I don't have the most pleasant past together, do we Marak?"

"No." Marak replied, sighing. He looked back to the innumerable pirates trailing them. "I would… I would like to explain myself, if possible."

"Keep quiet and I may just listen." Jack replied, not sounding overly truthful.

Marak pulled a branch out of the way. "I still fancy Chris, Jack – _OW_!" Jack jabbed Marak rather hard with the barrel of his pistol, causing Marak to grab his back in pain.

"I said be quiet!" Jack growled, digging the barrel in deeper. Marak grimaced and bared the pain.

"I still fancy her, Jack. And when I learned –" he let out a muffled groan as Jack jabbed him once more. "When I learned that you two had married, I was so angry. I thought the only way to get back at you was to make you miserable, perhaps to get you killed. **That's** why I went to Chesed. I wanted you to suffer because you had taken Chris from me."

"She was never yours in the first place, mate." Jack replied, desisting on digging his barrel in Marak's spine. "And that was a gutless thing for ye to do. Chris could have died today. Did ye know she's a mother now?" Jack pulled Marak to a stop and spun him to face the pirate captain. "Did ye know that she's a mother to a little girl?" Jack's face was hard and full of unquenchable fury.

Marak looked like he had been kicked in the stomach. "No – No. I didn't." He replied. "But I saved her, I –" He sighed and looked down. "I saved her, and have condemned myself."

"It's no less than ye deserve." Jack replied coldly. "If ye get me within reach of Chesed, I will forgive ye for yer past conduct because ye saved my wife and the mother of me daughter. If this is just another trap, though – Death will not stop me from finding you and skinning you alive. _Slowly_, savvy?"

"Yes, Jack." Marak pulled himself from Jack's grip. "Follow me."

The pirates continued through the trees for a few more minutes before the coast became visible once more. Navy sailors and Marines were currently tendering to the _Titan_, which was so large it could not be anchored remotely close to shore. Chesed still stood on the beach, though he was in the process of shoving a Marine out of the way to garner his seat in a jolly boat to the ship. Jack did not hesitate. He immediately burst from the tree line, disregarding Marak and brandishing his sword as an ear-splitting war cry rose from his throat.

"Mathias Chesed!" Jack challenged, pointing his blade at the admiral. The man and his men turned to look at Jack as the pirates in tow burst from the tree line as well. "You touched my girl. You're mine, you coward!" With that, Jack whirled his sword and charged right for the admiral.

Chesed only had a moment to pull his sword from its scabbard and block the blow given by Jack. Those sailors and Marines who could push their jolly boats into the water did so and paddled for the _Titan_ as fast as they could, while the others entered into battle. Chesed threw Jack off of him and asked, "Did you like my present, Sparrow? Pity I couldn't wrap her in a burial cloth for you!"

"Bastard!" Jack howled, chopping at Jack viciously. "You will never lay your hands upon her again!"

"Oh, if I had my way, I'd do much more than lay my hands upon her, Sparrow!" Chesed retorted, blocking the chop and slashing viciously at Jack. The pirate jerked his abdomen back just in time to feel the breeze of the blade. Marak leaped into the fray as Jack jerked back, striking Chesed's sword and holding it. Chesed smiled wickedly. "Ah, and my young turncoat, or so I thought. If I have two men vying for her, I really want to know what is so enchanting about her!" The two swords parted and rang loudly.

Marak lunged for Chesed and the admiral lifted a booted foot and kicked the man in the abdomen. Marak sprawled backwards, colliding into Jack and they both went sprawling into the sand. Chesed took the opportunity to leap into the last awaiting jolly boat and shoving off into the surf. By the time Jack and Marak had pulled themselves to their feet, he was well out in the water. "So long, Sparrow!" He crowed before continuing to row towards the _Titan_.

"Damn it!" Jack cursed, kicking and sending up a spray of sand. This would not do, he had to do something – _something_. Chesed couldn't just get away unscathed. It was then that Jack formulated a crazy plan, but one he would pursue. He turned to Marak, seeing that most of Chesed's men had been thinned out. He removed his hat and coat, flinging them into the sand. "Ye make sure they're taken care of, I'm going to do something Chesed won't forget!" With that, Jack charged into the surf and sheathed his sword. He dived beneath the water's surface and was seen no more.

As Chesed approached the _Titan_, a rope ladder was thrown over the side for the ship's commanding officer to climb. Mr. Tate called, "What should we do about those still ashore?"

"We'll mark them as lost at sea; prepare to make way!" Chesed replied as the jolly boat drifted to just below the rope ladder. Chesed laid the oars inside and grabbed the rope ladder. As he stepped off the jolly boat, it began to drift from the side of the _Titan_.

Chesed had no sooner lifted his leg to begin climbing than he felt the rope become taught beneath him. Suddenly he felt weight upon his waist and looked behind him to see a dripping wet Captain Jack Sparrow clutching his trousers by the belt loops with a knife in his teeth. Jack grabbed the knife and smoothly cut through the belt before quipping, "Hope ye have another change of trousers, Chesed!" The belt and sword fell into the water and Jack put all his weight on Chesed's trousers and they easily slipped off along with his underclothes.

When Jack reached Chesed's boots, his progress was hindered, but he simply decided to take the boots as well. Chesed, weaponless, could only kick his legs, but that proved fruitless as Jack slipped unharmed below into the water, taking Chesed's trousers, underclothing, and boots with him. Admiral Mathias Chesed was left to continue climbing onto the _Titan_ with nothing on below his waist besides his stockings.

Back at the cottage, Davy had made a salve from leaves and seawater and applied it to the rope burn around Chris' neck. It stung, but she was happy to be feeling anything at all. The pain just provided a reminder that she was alive. Jocelyn and the children soon arrived while Davy was finishing stitching up the cuts on her arms, and Chris took Pearl from her Auntie Joccy and clutched the child to her as though she had never seen her before.

The sun was beginning its arc downward when Jack and the other pirates returned. Jack was wet and carrying a bundle of material from which he pulled a pair of boots as he approached Chris, Davy, Pearl, and Jocelyn. "Can I interest anyone in a pair of boots? Washed 'em; they don't smell anymore." Chris arched an eyebrow at Jack's wares as he tossed them onto the sand. "Compliments of Mathias Chesed and his ghostly white lower half." Jack explained before plunking down besides Chris and taking his wife and daughter into his arms. "Oh, my girls. My girls… I'm sorry I ever left you."

Chris said nothing, for her throat was burning inside as well as out. Instead, she merely buried her face into her husband's shoulder, not caring that some of her salve may rub off, and she felt Davy finish his sewing and leave her side. When she opened her eyes, she observed a very sheepish looking Marak standing nearby. "Marak?" She asked in astonishment.

Jack looked up at him and then back down to his wife. "Marak, I don't believe ye've had the pleasure of meeting our daughter, Pearl." He whispered in Chris' ear, "He's a friend again, Chris. He saved you." Chris didn't know anything about that, but she'd take her husband's word for it.

Marak shyly walked forward, his eyes focused on the black-haired child in Jack and Chris' arms. He crouched down. "Hello there, Miss Pearl." Marak said softly. Pearl looked at the man with the different colored eyes and cooed. Marak smiled and closed his eyes. "She's beautiful."

"She takes after me." Jack replied. Chris cast him a look and he chuckled. "Alright, I guess she takes after both of us."

Marak smiled softly and rose back up. "I'll just leave you alone. I'm sure it's been a trying day for all of you." He inclined slightly at the waist and walked away.

"What happened?" Chris asked, immediately swallowing hard from the pain speaking caused her.

Jack waited a moment, letting Pearl fiddle with the rings on his fingers while he thought over his answer. "He cut you down, showed me how to revive you. Apparently he had the same aversion as I did to seeing you hung. He is a friend, after all."

"You sure?" Chris asked, grimacing.

Jack moved a lock of hair from her eyes. "I'm certain." He replied. "He led us to the _Titan_. And I made sure that the next time Chesed thinks about trying anything on you, he'll think twice." He kissed his wife and then helped her to her feet. "Let's get you to the _Pearl_. I think Loki's gone mad not seein' ye." With that sentiment, Jack supported his wife and daughter, and they headed for the docks.

oOo

When all is said and done  
And dead does he love you  
The way that I do?  
Breathing in lightning  
Tonight's for fighting  
I feel the hurt so physical

Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around I'll let you feel the burn  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around come around no more  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around I'll let you feel the burn  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around no more

She spreads her love  
She burns me up  
I can't let go  
I can't get out  
I've said enough  
Enough by now  
I can't let go  
I can't get out

Wait till the day you finally see  
I've been here waiting patiently  
Crossing my fingers and my t's  
She cried on my shoulder begging please

Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around I'll let you feel the burn  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around come around no more  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around I'll let you feel the burn  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around no more

She spreads her love  
She burns me up  
I can't let go  
I can't get out  
I've said enough  
Enough by now  
I can't let go  
I can't get out

What is it you really want  
I'm tired of asking  
You're gone I'm wasted

When I showed up and he was there  
I tried my best to grin and bear  
And took the stairs but didn't stop at the street  
And as we speak I'm going down

Cause she spread her love  
And burnt me up  
I can't let go  
I can't get out  
I've said enough  
Enough by now  
I can't let go  
I can't get out

Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around I'll let you feel the burn  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around come around no more  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around I'll let you feel the burn  
Think twice before you touch my girl  
Come around no more


	23. Le Cinque Terre !

**Chapter Twenty-Three  
Le Cinque Terre**

Because of Chesed's actions and Chris almost dying from hanging, Jack figured that the Caribbean, at the present moment, was not as safe as it had once been for the Sparrows. Because of this, he waited in Tortuga until the next time Giles de Fayette docked and then questioned him about the Mediterranean Sea. "Oh, never was zere a grander time in my life zan in ze glory days of ze Mediterranean buccaneers!" Giles replied, becoming wistful and nostalgic immediately. A factor of his nostalgia may have also been his reunion with Marak.

"So it's a good area then, aye?" Jack queried.

"It is not as good as ze Caribbean, to be perfectly frank Jacques." Giles admitted. "It is slow, and zere is a higher concentration of ships wiz escorts." Giles cocked his head in curiosity. "Why do you ask?"

Jack sighed. "Have you heard of Mathias Chesed?"

"_Fils de pute_!" Giles exclaimed and then caught himself.

"I see you have." Jack replied. He didn't know French, but he was pretty sure that Giles' exclamation was anything but kind. "He almost killed Chris by hanging weeks ago." Giles eyes darkened. "Without Marak here…" Jack looked to the man with the different colored eyes before continuing, "I'd no longer have a wife and Pearl'd no longer have a mother. We need to go somewhere and bide our time until he forgets about us, or starts chasing bigger fish."

"Of course, Jacques, of course." Giles nodded. "If you don't mind cutting back on your prosperity for ze present time, I zink zat ze Mediterranean will treat you very well, and I can give you a list of friendly ports." After speaking with Giles long into the night, Jack arranged for the _Black Pearl_ to take on provisions the next day. The sunrise after that, she set sail from Tortuga with all of her crew onboard save Ragetti.

After the scare with Chris, Ragetti did not want to leave his wife and son alone. He signed off of the _Black Pearl_, took his pay, and stayed behind. Chris knew that she would miss her friend terribly, but she understood that he didn't want to risk the chance of something happening to his family while he was away. Pintel also felt Ragetti's absence, and the first few nights at sea, Chris did her best to comfort the man with an extra ration of rum and some company as they headed east.

The Mediterranean was much tamer than the Caribbean, but just as profitable if a pirate knew how to exploit the waterways. Jack formulated the genius idea of setting several sailors adrift in a jolly boat to be picked up by a passing ship. If the ship had an escort, the 'rescued' sailors would wait until the sun had gone down and sabotage the escort by firing the guns of the other ship upon the escort. Once that was done, the _Black Pearl_ would swoop in and in the meantime the 'rescued' sailors would have spiked the guns, making them unusable. The ship would surrender, and in this way, the _Black Pearl_ made a great profit.

The _Pearl_ docked over a year later after leaving the Caribbean on the Italian coast, aiming to take on provisions before sailing back home. Jack figured that a year was enough time for the Caribbean to become relatively safe once more. The town they docked in was one of five coastal cities known as Le Cinque Terre. The cities were set into the hills and cliffs of northwest Italy, and were indeed some of the most beautiful towns Chris had ever seen. As the pirates disembarked the _Black Pearl_, Gibbs carried the now two year old Pearl on his shoulders as Chris followed with Loki upon her shoulders and Jack's arm linked with hers.

Gibbs had become one of Pearl's favorites after her parents. Chris marveled at how the man, who would maintain that women aboard ships were bad luck, could be turned into melted butter with one look or word of her daughter. As the pirates walked into the town, Gibbs sang to keep her content. "_Come all ye young sailors that follow the sea_!"

"_Way hey, blow the man down_!" Athos and Marty chipped in from behind Gibbs. Pearl swiveled her head to see who had added in on the song.

Gibbs drew her attention back with a tap. "_You must pay attention now listen to me_."

Athos and Marty replied by hollering, "_Give me some time to blow the man down_!"

Chris smiled to herself as they walked up the stone steps on which their gangplank rest. The stone steps disappeared into the sea and reached up into a main avenue that ran through the town named Riomaggiore. The town had many tall tower-houses that were painted in pinks, yellows, greens, and pale blues and seemed to shine in the setting sun's light. These tower-houses crowded the avenues and the cliffs. Plants hung from window sills, and carts rested by doorways, some empty, some filled with fish or pots or firewood.

"_I'm a salty old pirate set sail from Hong Kong_!" Gibbs turned his head to leer at Pearl as he stepped onto the dirt avenue, squinting his eyes at her.

"_Way hey, blow the man down_!" Athos and Marty bellowed.

"_Give me some whiskey, I'll sing you my song_." Gibbs finished his leering and winked at the toddler upon his shoulders.

"_Give me some time to blow the man down_!"

"Alright, alright, what are ye, the St. Paul's Boys Chorus?" Jack asked, leaving Chris an d nudging forward to come to walk besides Gibbs. He reached for his daughter. "C'mere, love." Pearl stretched her arms out for her father, and he held her tight to him. "I'll sing a song she really likes, don't you Pearly girly?" He cleared his throat before singing out, "_We pillage, we plunder we rifle and loot_ –"

"D_rink up me hearties yo-ho_." The rest of the crew sang, all sounding rather annoyed with the song. Indeed, Anamaria mimed throwing up while the others sang and Cotton's Parrot began crowing like an imbecile.

"Exactly!" Jack shouted, before plowing into the rest of the song, swinging Pearl about in his arms while she giggled. Chris chuckled and stroked the shoulder-sitting Loki affectionately. The crew of the _Black Pearl_ and its captain filled the lone avenue of Riomaggiore and headed for what appeared to be the only tavern in town. The town had been sleepy and almost silent as the pirates disembarked, but now it became alive with beggars and peddlers as they saw the newcomers.

"_Pesce! Pescare vendere! Fresco e buono per lei! __Avere un di annusare_!" A man at a cart with fish almost shoved a limp sea creature into Pintel's face as he passed by. The pirate slapped the fish away from him and scowled at the man. The fish peddler decided to try the next pirate and received the same result.

Feeling pressure on her trousers, Chris grabbed a thin hand that had slipped into her pocket and turned to confront her offender: an eight year old boy. He was tan and scrawny and had hair the color of dried bark. His eyes widened and his lips pulled back in fear as Chris' eyes bore into him. She didn't know much Italian, but had picked up enough over the months in the Mediterranean to communicate roughly. She reached into her pocket and pulled out three coins. She turned the boy's hand so it was palm up and spoke a single word of Italian with each coin she dropped into it. "_Tu. Tu madre. Domani._ Go home to yer mum, boy." The boy obeyed, closing his hand on the coins and disappearing in a flash.

The pirates filtered into the tavern and Jack bellowed, "Rum all around, _per favore_!" The crew cheered, and a young harried looking brunette barmaid came before the pirates.

"English?" She asked, and the pirates affirmed. "Welcome to Riomaggiore's only tavern." She spoke with an Italian accent that came through in her making her vowels extra long and enunciating her t's, r's, and d's sharply. "I happen to be the only one here with some English, so I will be serving you."

"Why thank you, milady." Jack bent at the waist and upon straightening pronounced, "Rum for everyone! Even the monkey!" Loki shrieked in approval.

"Sparrow..." Chris looked pointedly to the toddler in the pirate captain's arms. Sure, Pearl had ingested a swallow of rum every now and then to rest her when she was fitful, but she still was a child.

"And a glass of milk for Christiana here!" Jack replied, clapping his wife on the back.

"I am going to kick you in the jewels so hard, they'll be –" Chris warned, but Jack cut her off.

"Watch your tongue in front of the ears of the innocent, Chris!" Jack objected, patting Pearl on the back. "She is so lucky to have one parent looking out for her well-being…" He grinned at his wife and the pirates filtered into tables and the bar as the barmaid disappeared into the back room. She returned momentarily with the first tray of rum and a wineskin filled with fresh goat's milk. Once she handed the milk to Jack, he crowed, "Thank ye!" and began feeding his daughter.

At the end of a very long rum-soaked night, the pirates left a shiny pile of gold behind on the bar as well as the price of the drinks. The barmaid had been most accommodating of the _Black Pearl_'s crew, even smiling at any odd pinches or awful compliments that came her way, and she made sure that Pearl had enough milk and some sweetened rolls for her to chew on. Jack and Chris personally thanked the barmaid as their crew filed from the tavern.

"What is your name, young lady?" Jack asked, donning his hat as the couple and their daughter approached her.

She was busy scrubbing the tables and piling mugs on her tray. "Caprice." She stopped long enough to make eye contact with him.

"Caprice." The pirate captain reached for her hand and upon receiving it, placed a kiss upon her knuckles. "Thank ye for the wonderful hospitality." Jack released her hand and winked at her.

The young woman blushed and her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. Jack thought they looked familiar for a moment. "What's her name?" Caprice asked, nodding at Pearl, who had become sleepy and eventually fallen asleep in her mother's arms. She rested in them now, her head lying on her mother's shoulder.

"This is Pearl." Chris adjusted her daughter slightly; the toddler slept on. "She's named after a ship, thanks to this crazy git." The quartermaster nudged her husband and he grinned.

"Well, she's also named after the first mate of that ship, thanks to you." Jack said pointedly. Chris grinned.

"She's precious." Caprice said, touching one of Pearl's onyx curls. "And you both are...?" She asked, turning her attention back to the mother and father.

"This is me wife Chris, and I am none other than Captain Jack Sparrow." Jack replied, his chest puffing out with pride.

Caprice's face had been cheerful and pleasant, but at Jack's introduction, awe and maybe a little bit of fear or anger spasmed through her features before they reverted to a neutral form. "It was a pleasure to meet you both. _Buona notte_." With that, she turned back to her tray and balanced it on her hip before heading to the back room.

"I love Europeans and their hospitality!" Jack exulted as he and his wife left the tavern, and with that sentiment, they headed for the _Black Pearl_.

The next day, repairs were taken out on the ship. Barnacles couldn't be scraped because there were no nearby beaches, but rotten wood was removed, new wood put in its place, the sails were mended or replaced, and the ship was made as ready as she could be for her return voyage to the Caribbean.

Chris and Anamaria were in charge of buying the provisions, mostly because Anamaria's Spanish was the closest they could really get to Italian and Chris wouldn't abide any funny business with their provisions. Chris brought Pearl along on her hip. The haggling was long and very confusing in the mixed up English-Spanish-Italian language, but eventually enough provisions were secured for the voyage and they were hauled down to the _Pearl_ by cart boys. There were a few coins left over, so Chris figured she and Anamaria could have a drink on the _Pearl_ and so the two women and the toddler headed for the tavern.

Caprice was the only one working when they entered. Chris greeted the barmaid warmly and asked for two mugs of rum and a wineskin of milk for Pearl. The rum slaked Chris' and Anamaria's thirst, but didn't satiate them. Another round came, which they drank greedily, and then a third one. Chris noticed that the rum of the third round was much more appealing compared with the previous two. The rum somehow had the taste of candy.

Chris drained her cup and smacked her lips. "I think we'll have another… Cap… Caprice..." A sudden haze came over her within seconds and the empty rum mug dropped from her hands. She looked to Pearl in her arms, sipping her milk, and then to Anamaria, who had slumped forward. This wasn't right, rum didn't just do this after three mugs. The candy taste… It must have been laced with something! Those were Chris' last thoughts before her head rolled back and she let out a snore.

Chris was pulled out of her sleep by Jack's sharp voice. "Most irresponsible, spirit-loving wench I have ever met!" His words were followed by a large amount of cold water that almost drowned the woman.

She jerked forward with a snort and then a choke. "Jack?" She asked, opening her eyes. She saw her husband standing over her, another bucket of water at the ready.

"Yes." He emptied his fresh bucket and the cold water slapped her across the face. It dripped down, stopping momentarily on the scar she now bore from the attempted hanging, before continuing its journey down. "I'm here, you're here, but _where in the bloody Hell_ is Pearl, Chris?" Jack demanded. He threw one last bucket of water on Chris and let it clatter to the ground as she coughed and wiped the water from her eyes.

Chris observed that she was lying in a rubbish heap behind the tavern, smelling of fish and other things. Pearl was noticeably missing. "I don't know." Chris admitted, standing. Her head spun.

"Exactly!" Jack pulled two new buckets of water from behind him and threw them onto her as he spoke."I have the whole bleeding crew scouring the town for you two! We found Anamaria in afloat in the water down by the _Pearl_; she almost drowned! How did you think getting drunk in the middle of the bleedin' day was a _good idea_?"

"We only had three drinks, Jack, and the last one – I think it was laced with something!" Her head stopped spinning and she said, "You know that I don't get tipsy after only three drinks!" Though she was giving Jack reasons why, she immediately began to panic inside. Someone had taken Pearl? Oh Lord, why would someone want to take their daughter?

"Captain! There you are!" Marty skidded into the alley behind the tavern, a piece of paper clutched in his hand. "Captain, we found this nailed to your cabin door." He handed the letter to Jack, who read it.

Jack handed it to Chris shortly, shaking his head and murmuring, "Looks like it was written by Rags."

The old joke let Chris know that he no longer blamed her as she read the poorly formed letters on the page. _"If yu evr wont to se yr dottr agen, go to the cav in the hls bi the toun. It wl be mrkd wth a wit rok. Bring coyns. No on els can com if tha arnt famly._" There was no signature. Chris looked up to Jack and Marty, who was still waiting.

"Marty, you go and collect everyone and bring them back to the ship. If we don't return by tomorrow morning, come after us and give them Hell."

"Aye, sir." Marty saluted and exited the alley.

Jack turned to Chris and said, "Let's get you in some dry clothes, get our swords, and go." The two left the alley and headed for the _Pearl_.

"Who would take Pearl from us?" Chris asked as they walked through the town. "And furthermore, how could they even know we were here?"

"I would think Chesed would take her." Jack said. "But we haven't seen any sign of him here or heard anything suspicious. And I think that if it were him, or one of our other enemies, you'd be dead." Jack sighed as they climbed up the gangplank to the _Pearl_. Cotton and his parrot were the only souls aboard, and he nodded to his captain and quartermaster as they entered the captain's cabin. "And furthermore, whoever wrote the note doesn't know how to read or write."

"Or they wanted us to think so." Chris said. As soon as the door closed, she stripped her wet clothing from her body and stepped into a pair of dry trousers and pulled a new shirt over her head. She tied her hair back with her damask bandana as Loki leaped down from the canopy over the bed and chattered curiously. "Do you think we should take him?" Chris asked as her husband handed her the belt with her rapier and pistol upon it.

"It did say family only," Jack said, winking at his wife, "But I think we should keep it to us." He strapped on his effects and asked, "Did you get any coins?"

Chris crossed to her writing desk and pulled open one of the drawers. Inside were pieces of eight, pence, florins, and francs. She grabbed a handful of coins and dropped them into the pocket of her trousers and nodded. She saw through the porthole that the sun was beginning its descent, so she grabbed a lantern, made sure it was full of oil, and gave Loki a tender pat. He cooed from the canopy and looked to Jack and Chris. The quartermaster turned to the captain and said, "Let's go."

The two left the ship accompanied by silence. Riomaggiore seemed to have fallen still and quiet as the two walked climbed the main avenue. The buildings became smaller and further spread out until there was nothing, and the avenue became a faint trail leading into the hills. The sun was just about to sink behind the horizon as the pair approached a cave. Outside of it was a large rock that had been marked by white chalk.

"We're here!" Jack called into the cave. The only answer he received was the echo of his own voice. He scanned the surrounding trees and terrain and saw no one. "I guess we're supposed to go in." He said. Chris lit the lantern and Jack entered first, his sword drawn.

No one was waiting for them inside, and so they continued into the cave, deeper and deeper until the circle of faint light that had been the mouth was no longer visible. Neither spoke as they climbed over rough rocks and hopped over stagnant pools of water. Chris could feel the anger begin to pulsate off of Jack, and she couldn't help but feel responsible. This was a good deal of her fault. If she hadn't wanted a drink so badly, if she and Anamaria had only returned to the _Black Pearl_, she and Jack wouldn't be stumbling around inside a cave, looking for their daughter. "Jack…" She began softly, "I'm sorry, this is my –"

"Stow it." Jack replied. "It is not your fault someone slipped ye somethin' and kidnapped Pearl. Let's just focus on findin' our daughter, alright?" He asked. Chris agreed.

They finally saw a shape ahead in the darkness after a good deal of time had passed. The shape was waiting for them at what seemed to be an underground river. Jack raised his sword as they approached the shape, but when the lantern cast a light upon the shape, his sword lowered. The shape was merely an old man with a cloak upon his shoulders and a hood drawn around his face. There was no sign of Pearl. "Who are –" Jack began, but the man simply stretched forth his hand, palm open. His palm already had coins in it, and behind him sat a boat bobbing on the water. Deeper into the cavern, Chris could hear wails of dismay, and with the sight of the man and the coins and the sounds, she suddenly knew exactly where they were from her childhood lessons.

"Jack, this is going to sound crazy…" Chris said, "But I think we're at the edge of the Underworld."

Jack turned to her, a curious look in his eye. "What?" He asked.

"When Norrington and I were little, our governess made us study Greek mythology. This man is the Ferryman – he ferries dead souls across the river and into the Underworld. If you don't have the coins to pay him…" She reached into her pocket and drew out four coins, "You don't get to go to your reward. Or your punishment." She was puzzled, because the Underworld was a Grecian belief, and they were in Italy. If she remembered correctly, though, the Italians had adopted Greece's beliefs and just changed the names.

"We have to go to the Underworld to get our daughter back?" Jack asked. He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know how, but whoever took her is going to wish for the Underworld to release them from the torment I'm going to give."

Chris gave the Ferryman the four required coins, and he stepped aside to allow the two pirates to step into his boat. As soon as they were seated, the Ferryman climbed aboard and picked up a long pole and began to move the boat into the water. It was pitch black besides the lantern Chris carried and the dim lanterns positioned at either end of the boat. The water seemed to be made of liquid pitch, and when Chris looked over the side of the boat, arms reached up for and grasped at the hull from the river. The Ferryman didn't mind or notice this, even when a hand clutched his pole for a moment. Within minutes, the boat bumped up onto a bank. Jack and Chris clamored out of the boat and onto the pebbly ground immediately.

"Why is it that every time I team up with you we go somewhere dark, dank, and hazardous to our health?" Jack asked. "For instance: the cave where ye found Liz, the cave where I caught that serpent for ye, the cave where Black Bart was a royal ass, the cave where we were almost skewered alive –"

"I have no idea." Chris interrupted as they found a path leading from the bank. The lantern only cast about a three feet wide circle of light around the pair, making their traveling of the path slow going so that they would make sure it didn't lead to a sudden fall or some type of unexpected death.

"I'm just sayin', it seems to be a funny pattern –" Jack continued, when suddenly three dog heads lunged into their beam of light, barking and growling and snapping. The three heads were shortly followed by the body of one dog, upon which the three heads were fixed. Jack let out an exclamation and jumped back, brandishing his sword when Chris' rapier sliced down on the neck of all three heads. The beast whimpered and collapsed. Jack looked at Chris, his eyes wide, and saw that she looked disbelieving of what she had just done. As she slid her rapier back into its scabbard, Jack breathed, "Thanks for that, love." Chris simply nodded and they continued.

The path began to slope down and some light began to fill the space, but from where the two pirates couldn't say. When the path leveled out, the captain and quartermaster found themselves in a valley full of gray plants. Shadows of past heroes floated through these, with other shadows fluttering around them like bats. The pirates kept their weapons bared, and Chris believed that she saw the shadow of Sir Francis Drake, the first British pirate. She hadn't known him in life, of course, but she had once seen a painting of him and the shadow did resemble the painting. "Well, I'll be buggered!" Jack whispered, and then nodded to a different shadow. Chris saw but a glimpse of it before it disappeared, but the shadow had resembled Victoria, the girl from the ship _Revenge_ that had saved Chris' life. The shadow faded away before either could call out to it. The quartermaster swallowed hard and they continued.

After the valley, they came to a palace of gray granite and the courtyard before the entrance of the grand building. Three men stood upon a raised platform, passing out judgment to the souls before them in all the languages of the world. Jack and Chris watched with awe for a moment or two before realizing that they were in line to be judged. Chris wondered how that would work since they were living and not dead, but she suspected she would receive her answer soon enough. The pirates waited behind a party of recently slain soldiers. The better of the souls were directed to a path leading from the right side of the courtyard, and the lesser to the left. When Jack and Chris approached the three judges, one of them exploded in anger.

"Two more undead souls here in Hades! Why have you come here? Are you here to mock our most sacred place?" The judge was stout, with heavy jowls on each side of his mouth. The other two judges, one tall and scrawny and the other average in height and weight, looked down their noses at the two pirates.

'Two more?' Chris thought, and a glimmer of hope that one of the previous undead souls was Pearl awoke in the back of her mind.

"We search for our daughter, a little girl." Jack said, keeping his hand upon the hilt of his sword. "We were told to come here. We have no intention of mocking; we simply want what is ours."

The average judge spoke. "A child, one Pearl Joshamina Sparrow, aged two years, three months, two weeks, four hours, thirty seven minutes was brought here, yes. She was taken to the left." He pointed and the other two judges leered at him. "You may search for her, for we are not the land of the living. I warn you that if Hades finds you, you shall wish that you came here dead."

"Thanks mates." Jack replied before pulling Chris towards the left path. They entered it and saw that the path stretched along a barren wasteland. The path was jagged, and down the steep sides were the souls of departed who were not what one would call "good" in life. Each of them was doing backbreaking labor like grinding stones and hauling large boulders. Some leered at the two living souls, the others just kept at their work.

As they continued, they heard cries ahead of them and recognized the squalls as belonging to Pearl. They picked up their feet and skidded to a halt above the place where a man rested below. His foot was chained to a large boulder, and beside him was a capstan that would be used to crush rock into powder. Chris did not recognize him, but she heard Jack mutter under his breath, "Barbossa, you bastard!"

Hector Barbossa looked exactly as he did the moment before he died. He was wearing the same hat, and the same clothing. His hair was the same auburn color, his beard was scraggly, and his skin just as scarred. The only difference was that the color of his complexion was a pallid gray and the front of his shirt and coat were stained red. He had not spotted the pirates above, for he was currently arguing with none other than Caprice, who was holding the crying Pearl. "I don't even know who the Hell you are girl!" He growled. "And now ye bring that squalling brat into the Underworld, saying she's going to set me free?"

"No, not her, her father –!" Caprice exclaimed offering Pearl to Barbossa. He pulled away from her in revulsion. "She's innocent, she can't take your place, but her _father_ –"

"Is going to flay ye alive, ye two-faced Italian hag!" Jack bellowed before sliding down the steep incline off the path's side without a second thought. Chris followed, and as soon as their feet hit the ground, they drew their swords and poised them, ready to strike.

"Jack! Fancy meeting you here." Barbossa exclaimed, nodding at the other pirate captain. "Ooh, and you brought a girl –"

"Give us back out daughter, Caprice." Jack demanded, turning his sword on the young woman. She held up Pearl as though she were a shield. "I'm sure we can't kill Barbossa again, but ye, ye are a different matter." Chris saw Jack's eyes flash with a shuddering amount of malice and anger.

"Father, take her!" Caprice shoved Pearl into Barbossa's arms and he reeled back as he took the toddler.

He looked from the toddler to Caprice and the Sparrows as every person capable of speech other than Caprice echoed, "Father?"

"Barbossa, you bastard, did you set her to this?" Jack asked, his sword flashing to point at Barbossa. The dead man cackled.

"God! I don't even know her, Jack." He cackled even harder as Pearl continued in a fresh bout of tears. "I met her fifteen minutes ago when she came, telling me the father of this babe would soon arrive and free me from my punishment!" Barbossa cackled even harder.

"He will, he just needs to touch your chain and put it on him and you'll be free, Father!" Caprice said. "Do it while you have the baby!"

Chris grabbed Caprice by the hair, as the young woman's focus had been trained on the two men. Caprice yelped as Chris yanked her head backward and put the point of her rapier to the other woman's throat. "Give us back our daughter or I will open the throat of yours." She promised.

Barbossa once more cackled. "She says she's my daughter. I don't see the resemblance." He laughed and adjusted Pearl in his arms. The little girl had a snotty nose and her blue eyes were wet and red with tears. "I personally don't care what ye do with her, but it seems I do have something ye want, oh yes I do." He looked down to the toddler and then back to the Sparrows. "How about this. One of ye touch this manacle around my ankle, and it will come off at the touch of living flesh. Put it on Caprice, and I'll give you back your little girl."

Caprice's eyes widened. "No, no, no!" She began to yell, thrashing about in Chris' arms. This caused Chris' blade to pierce her throat and a jet of blood sprayed the ground. Caprice's hand flew to her throat and she gurgled.

"There's nothing for it, now, hurry before she dies!" Barbossa commanded. Chris was confused at what was happening, but she and Jack complied with Barbossa's demands. Jack removed the manacle, which appeared to be a solid ring of metal until he touched it and it split in an opening wide enough for Barbossa's ankle to fit through. Caprice was collapsing as Jack placed the manacle onto her ankle and it sealed itself. Barbossa handed Pearl to Jack and bent down to touch Caprice's chest in the spot where her heart would be. An orange glow radiated from Caprice's skin for a moment before it suddenly shot up Barbossa's hand and enveloped him. As Caprice's skin lost its color, the pallor in Barbossa's complexion was replaced with the healthy glow of life. Once the orange glow dissipated, Barbossa had rosy cheeks and Caprice was ashen and still.

"We'd best get going. Hades' is going to know that something is afoot." Barbossa said. With no other explanation, he pounced up the steep incline towards the path.

Chris crossed to her husband and daughter first. "Is she alright?" She asked, leaning in to look at her daughter.

"She's just scared is all." Jack replied. While Pearl had been wailing and crying just minutes before, now that she was in the arms of her father, she was calm. Jack wiped the snot from her nose as Barbossa shouted down.

"Sparrow, I know you're an idiot, but get your bleeding end up here! I don't have any coins!"

"Let's go. Watch him and do hesitate sending him back here, Chris." Jack whispered in her ear before they continued up the side to the path. Once they reached it, they heard the clinking of the chain below and saw that Caprice had pulled herself to her feet, and now she was shaking with rage.

"_Oh grand'Ade di signore! Lei è stato ingannato; ci sono dei mortali nei suoi reami!_" She howled, clanking her chain. "_Venire rapidamente! Venire rapidamente!_"

"Let out all your sails and run!" Barbossa said. With that, the recently un-deceased pirate and the living pirates kicked up their heels and ran down the path as fast as they could. As they passed by those dead, several called up to Barbossa, and Jack recognized those who did as dead pirates that had formerly served Barbossa aboard the _Black Pearl_. They skidded into the courtyard and knocked into the platform upon which the three judges rested. As they collected themselves, the tall, thin judge pointed a thin finger at them.

"Hades knows." He said ominously. "He's coming to collect each of you."

Barbossa flashed the judge a rude gesture and said, "Come this way! He won't expect it!" With that, he grabbed Chris by the hand and hauled her to the right path leading from the courtyard.

"Hector Barbossa, you stupid bastard, that's the wrong way!" Jack hollered, shifting Pearl to his other hip and charging after him.

"He's right, you salt crusted flea-bitten skuttle hound!" Chris proclaimed, trying to shake Barbossa from her.

"The first place he'll go is to the Ferryman. We need to lie low until he looks somewhere else!" The path that they followed now was lined with lush green grass, and on either side of the path were large, spacious houses with over-abundant gardens and shining windows. "Here!" Barbossa leaped over a garden wall and landed on the flowerbed below. Chris had no choice but to follow him, except that she wasn't prepared for the leap and instead hit the garden wall hard and pitched forward, landing hard on her face beside Barbossa. Jack used the garden gate.

Chris pulled herself to her knees, face stinging, back aching, and pelvis throbbing. She bunched her two hands into fists and began walloping Barbossa with them. "You half drowned rotten timbered fish head! You skirt wearing, barnacle bottomed cut-throat! You rolling sea sick, _milk maid_!"

Barbossa held up his hands to protect his face. "Where did ye get this cantankerous flower, Jack?" He questioned.

"Excuse me." A feminine voice that certainly did not belong to Chris asked. All paused and looked up to see a blonde-haired woman with blue eyes. She was wearing a simple country dress and her blonde hair was hanging over her shoulders. "What are you doing in my garden?"

Chris gasped as she recognized her mother, and the house behind her as their manor back outside of London. She was awed into silence and her fists fell limp at her side.

"Yes, well, it was _his_ fault." Jack said, pointing at Barbossa.

"Jack, I'm sure that you had your fair share in it as well." Another woman materialized, this one walking from the front door of the manor. When Jack saw her, he went pale. The woman had black hair kept in a neat bun and green eyes. She smiled. "Are you just going to stand there or come give your mum a hug?"

"Your mum?" Chris asked, her jaw dropping. Jack nodded in amazement and closed the distance between him and his mother in three brisk strides. Chris looked back up to Lady Thomas, her mother, and she opened her arms to her daughter.

"It's been too long, Christiana." Lady Thomas said, tears in her eyes. As Chris climbed off of Barbossa and hugged her mother, she noted that those who resided on the right side of the path did not have the ashen pallor as those on the left side, but they seemed to glow with a golden light. When Chris broke from the hug, her mother cupped her face. "You turned out to be a pretty young lady, Christiana. Even if you are a pirate." She laughed and patted her cheeks. "I wish we could catch up, but you must hurry. Hades is looking for all of you. Maritza –" Lady Thomas looked to Jack's mother, who had pulled out a handkerchief and was wiping at his face. Pearl looked bewildered.

Maritza Sparrow looked to Lady Thomas and sighed. "I suppose your right. Come on, Jackie." She took her son's hand and began to lead him inside, calling over her shoulder, "You too, Hector. I'm keeping my eye on you." The pirates and the deceased women filed inside and the door closed."

Inside they were greeted with the grand receiving hall that Chris remembered from her childhood. The staircase was the same one that she and Jamie had raced down time and time again, and the carpet was the same that she had stained the first time she and Adam had decided to try wine without their parents' permission – She was absolutely astonished.

"We haven't much time, so you'll have to listen to us and obey us carefully." Maritza said, turning to the pirates once the door was closed. "In three minutes, Hades will come here searching for you. By that time, you will have left through the back door and followed it to the river –"

"The same stream that I played in?" Chris asked, her face stretched in awe.

"Don't interrupt, Christiana. She is your mother-in-law, after all." Lady Thomas scolded. Chris felt sheepish and murmured an apology.

Maritza continued. "No, it is the same river you came in on. Touch the surface of water with your sword or anything but your flesh. The Ferryman will come to you. As soon as you have paid him eight coins and stepped on the boat, you will be safe. Once you're on the other side, do not stop until you leave the cave, understand?"

"Yes, Mum." Jack said. He sounded very meek and very amazed.

"Good. Now Jack, I need to have a word with you –" Maritza pulled Jack to the side and then spoke to Barbossa. "Don't even think about laying a finger on anything, Hector, or I'll tell your mother."

"Mummy?" Barbossa asked, pulling his hat from his head.

"She's busy at the moment, but yes. We've become thick as thieves here, I'll have you know." Maritza said before lowering her voice and speaking to Jack.

Chris turned to her mother. "How did you and Jack's mum find each other?"

Lady Thomas smiled. "When you and Jack married, we decided we'd best make the other's acquaintance and we became fast friends. The girl Jack is holding, that's my granddaughter, isn't it?" She asked. Chris confirmed that she was with a nod. "Dear me." Lady Thomas touched her heart and smiled. "She is precious."

"Before we go, Mother…" Chris said, knowing time grew short, "I – I never got to say goodbye to you. James said that you asked after me…"

Lady Thomas' eyes became sad. "Yes, I did, Christiana." She cupped her daughter's face and touched her hair. "But when I arrived here, I learned that you were alive and happy. It was all I could ask for to know."

"Are you –" Chris swallowed hard, "Are you ashamed of me?"

Lady Thomas smiled. "Never. You're married, you lead a life you love, and you have a beautiful little daughter. I'd never be ashamed of you, Christiana." She kissed her daughter on the forehead and Chris felt like she had just drank a draught of hot rum. "Now you all must get going, or we shan't ever see each other again, no matter how much good you might have done."

The two mothers shepherded the pirates to the back entrance and opened it onto a lush grassy plain. Beyond it was the river that they had crossed upon, glossy and black. Chris had lost the lantern sliding down the edge of the path, so she could only hope the light would remain. "Go." Maritza bade, shoving her son first. "And make me some more grandchildren!"

The three pirates hoofed it across the plain as fast as they could. Pearl entertained herself by gurgling and cooing in step with Jack, and as they reached the river, a loud booming followed by an enraged yell echoed through the air, hurting their eardrums. Barbossa whipped his sword from his side and touched the water. It rippled, and within seconds, the Ferryman and his boat materialized from the darkness beyond and bumped up on the shore. Chris slapped the remaining coins in her pocket into the Ferryman's hand and Jack handed Pearl in first. Barbossa barreled past Jack into the boat and finally the captain of the _Pearl_ and his quartermaster hopped in just as a swallowing darkness began to envelope the plain. Chris took Pearl into her arms as the Ferryman shoved off with his pole from the bank and the darkness raced to the water's surface.

As soon as the darkness touched the water, it recoiled as though stung. Chris held Pearl close to her and Jack placed an arm around her shoulders as they watched the darkness gather in one spot and begin to materialize into the form of a bearded man. They could not make out his details, though, for the Ferryman kept rowing, and soon darkness enveloped them. The grabbing arms were no longer reaching from the water on the return trip, but Jack and Chris held Pearl close. As they continued their journey, Barbossa asked, "So Jack, ye got a position open on the _Pearl_?"

Jack turned to Barbossa and said, "Very funny. No way in sodding Hell, Barbossa."

"Jack, for old time's sake –" Barbossa continued.

Jack pulled his pistol from his sash and said, "I have more than one shot, Barbossa. Continue." The other man fell silent.

Upon reaching the other bank, the now weary pirates made as fast a time as they could reaching the entrance into the world. When they did exit the cave, the sun was rising in the east. Barbossa took a deep breath of air and turned to the Sparrows. "Jack – Christiana, I believe –" Chris scowled at the man as he swept off his hat, "And little Pearl – Thank ye for yer assistance, and I shall take my leave. But…" He smiled at Jack, "Watch your back, Sparrow, for I still remember who gave me this." He tapped his blood-stained chest and took off on the trail leading away from Riomaggiore.

Jack said nothing and neither did Chris as they walked through the still sleeping town of Riomaggiore. As they approached the _Black Pearl_, they found the entire crew assembled, ready to come after them. "Jack's back!" Gibbs crowed as the Sparrows climbed the gangplank to the ship, and the crew became a bustle with questions and curiosity. Jack raised his hand to silence them.

"Mr. Gibbs, are we fully provisioned and repaired?" He asked.

"Aye, captain." Gibbs replied.

"Do we have the full capacity to get under way?"

Gibbs thought for a moment before nodding. "Aye captain."

"Good." Jack opened his cabin door and ushered Chris and Pearl inside. "Then heave to and make sail and let's go home!"

oOo

Well you know those times

When you feel like there's a sign there on your back

Say's "I don't mind if ya kick me

Seems like everybody has"

Things go from bad to worse

You'd think they can't get worse than that

And then they do

You step off the straight and narrow

And you don't know where you are

Use the needle of your compass

To sew up your broken heart

Ask directions from a genie

In a bottle of Jim Beam

And she lies to You

That's when you learn the truth

If you're going through hell

Keep on going, Don't slow down

If you're scared, don't show it

You might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

Well I been deep down in that darkness

I been down to my last match

Felt a hundred different demons

Breathing fire down my back

And I knew that if I stumbled

I'd fall right into the trap that they were laying, Yeah

But the good news

Is there's angels everywhere out on the street

Holding out a hand to pull you back upon your feet

The ones that you been dragging for so long

You're on your knees

You might as well be praying

Guess what I'm saying

If you're going through hell

Keep on going, Don't slow down

If you're scared, don't show it

You might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

Yeah, If you're going through hell

Keep on moving, Face that fire

Walk right through it

You might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

If you're going through hell

Keep on going, Don't slow down

If you're scared, don't show it

You might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

Yeah, If you're going through hell

Keep on moving, Face that fire

Walk right through it

You might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

Yeah you might get out

Before the devil even knows you're there

Yeah


	24. A Plague Upon Port Royale's Houses !

**Chapter Twenty-Four  
A Plague Upon All Port Royale's Houses**

"What do ye say, doc?" Chris asked Davy as she sat upon the foot of the bed she and Jack shared. Davy stood with his doctor's bag at the navigational table, and Jack was playing peek-a-boo with Pearl, who in turn was playing peek-a-boo with Loki. The _Black Pearl_ was some several weeks out of Riomaggiore. Chris had experience some nausea and vomiting recently and after a few days of it, Davy had come to examine her.

"After some thinking, it appears you have all the signs of being pregnant." Davy replied, replacing his instruments in his doctor's bag. Jack looked up sharply as the doctor continued speaking. "I'd wager you're about two months along."

Jack set Pearl down and said, "Well isn't that somethin'? If ye'll excuse me, I have a bet to go collect on." Chris then promptly punched her captain in the arm. "_Ow_."

"Should… Should I leave?" Davy asked, looking at the wife and husband and blanching.

"I think that'd be best, Davy." Chris said, her eyes fastened upon her husband. Davy picked up his doctor's bag, bobbed once, and left through the cabin door. Chris looked at her husband, who had gone back to playing with Pearl and asked, "Do you think this is funny?"

"I thought ye'd get a laugh out of it Chris, Lord." Jack said, tickling his daughter. She burst into giggles. He looked at his wife as his fingers continued to tickle. "We're going to have another baby – It's going to be great!"

"We had to be parted last time, and I think you remember how that turned out." Chris said, pressing her lips into a thin line. Jack's eyes darkened and he stopped tickling Pearl.

"Pearlie, could ye go play with Loki?" Jack asked his daughter.

"Yes Daddy!" Pearl rolled over and approached the monkey. His hair had begun to lighten slightly at the roots, and every day Chris was reminded that he was aging and was no longer the young monkey she had rescued from the trapped _Tempest_ years ago. "Let's play!" She lifted Loki from the headboard gingerly and he then sprang from her grasp and the two spent the next few minutes chasing each other around the captain's cabin.

"We can't help it, can we Chris?" Jack asked, moving so that he sat beside his wife. He grasped her hand. "Ye have a few more months before it gets to the point that we have to boot ye off anyway, don't ye? We'll figure out a safe place for ye by the time that happens."

"Are we even ready to have another?" Chris asked, looking to Pearl as she squealed and ran by, pursued by a bounding Loki.

"We'd best get ready, love." Jack patted her stomach. "And it'd best be a boy too." He smiled and gave his wife a reassuring kiss.

Weeks later, the _Black Pearl _finally found herself in the Caribbean Sea. It felt good to be back in familiar sailing grounds. Chris loved to grin into that familiar Caribbean breeze and warm her body in the almost constant Caribbean sun. Pearl's vocabulary was expanded by Chris, Jack, and her various pirate Uncles and Aunt Anamaria. She shortly knew the terms for just about everything aboard the ship, and with that part of her education complete, Jack made it his task to try and teach her how to sail.

"She's barely past two!" Chris exclaimed when Jack spoke his intentions to his wife.

"Never too early to learn how to become a captain!" Jack replied and plucked his daughter from his wife's arms before turning to the bridge. Chris watched as Jack sat Pearl upon his hip and allowed her to grab the knobs of the wheel and turn it. He whispered into her ear and her black curls blew around in the breeze. Chris felt a warm feeling surround her heart as she looked upon the pair, and she knew the sight of them was something she would remember forever.

The _Black Pearl_ stayed out to sea for several more weeks, plundering passing merchants as she did. By the time the _Pearl_ arrived in Tortuga for the first time in many months, Chris had a small baby bump and Pearl was excited at the prospect of a little brother or sister _and_a holiday away from the _Black Pearl_. Time was flying fast, and Chris knew that in the next few months, she and Jack would need to find a solution to the problem of the early contractions that had occurred with her last pregnancy. But now, she did not think of that. Pearl was left aboard with Athos and Anamaria (Jack said something about the two getting practice in while there was still time, at which point Anamaria threw a belaying pin at Jack's head and he just barely dodged it), and Chris and Jack were off to get fresh provisions.

As the two walked down the front of the taverns and stores along the shore, a familiar voice began calling their names. They turned to see Giles de Fayette and Antony Marak waving at them. They quickly met one another and hugs and handshakes were given and received. "I am glad to see zat you both 'ave returned from ze Mediterranean unscathed!" Giles said, grinning. "Did you find fair waters zere?"

"Very fair, Giles, very fair." Jack grinned. "We just got back. What's been happenin' in our absence?"

The joy in Giles' face dimmed and Marak spoke for him. "You're both lucky you got out when you did. Chesed went on a rampage when you left."

"What happened?" Chris asked. She could tell by the reactions on both men's faces that it couldn't have been good.

"He struck here, twice." Giles said. "Ransacked ze Faithful Bride and nearly burned it to ze ground because he knew your sister was employed zere, Jacques."

Jack gave a start. "Is she alright?" He looked to the Faithful Bride tavern's sign and seemed about ready to light off for it, but Giles stopped him.

"She and ze children are fine Jacques, I assure you. He did burn down ze Ragettis' cottage, but zey were not home. They now live above ze Faithful Bride as well."

"He seemed determined to find you and thought you in hiding." Marak said. "He wanted to drive you out, and so the second time he raided here and did not find you, he extended his reach to any suspicious ship. One of our ships was taken and the crew with it, Davy Jones rest their souls."

"It is a lucky coincidence zat you are here, Jacques." Giles said. "A pirate armada is sailing out in two days to ransack Port Royale and show ze coward Mathias Chesed zat he will not push us around!"

"Everyone in Tortuga who is able bodied and has a ship is contributing. They want the town to be in ashes when they leave it." Marak concluded.

Port Royale? The Turners were there, as well as Norrington. Chris looked to her husband and she felt anxiety bubble up in her stomach. Jack wouldn't agree to this; he couldn't. While, yes, Port Royale was the bane of many pirates' existence, they had friends there. Jack wouldn't agree to help in their demise, he couldn't.

"I'll get me share of the plunder, o' course?" Jack asked, taking Chris off guard. She stared at him as Giles agreed, of course. "I suppose ye don't have a forerunner though, do ye?"

"Why would we?" Giles asked.

"I don't suppose ye know about the long nines and the harbor battery that are prepared to blow any ship out of the water since the _Black Pearl_, captained by Hector Barbossa, docked at Port Royale years ago? The ship blew the bejesus out of the port and soon after, the Royal Navy made sure the port had a formidable harbor defense." Giles and Marak's expressions told that they didn't. "I know a secret cove, mates. Me and me crew'll go there, disable the harbor defenses, and then yer armada can sail in free and easy. What do ye say?"

"You 'ave a mind for strategy, Jacques." Giles said, grinning.

"I wager in another life, I'd make a right good admiral." Jack said, winking to Chris. She was stunned that Jack was actually going to aid in the looting of a port where their friends lived.

"Can you make it zere before we head out?" Giles questioned.

"Mate, do ye mean to insult me and me ship?" Jack asked. "We'll have plenty of breathin' room in between, I promise."

"I apologize, Jacques. We shall see you in zree days at most, zen." Giles said, grabbing his hand and shaking it.

Jack bobbed his hat and grabbed Chris' arm. "See ye then." With that, he pulled Chris with him and they set off for the docks at a casual pace.

"Jack—" Chris began, but Jack silenced her with a wave of his hand. Pirates were still waiting for their pair when Jack and Chris arrived and Jack hollered, "Change of plans mates! Prepare to make way!"

"Jack, what –?" Gibbs questioned.

"I'll give you the bearings in a moment, Mr. Gibbs. In the meantime, let's put Tortuga behind us and head in a south south-westerly direction." Jack commanded. "Chris, help me with the gangplank." Chris had never seen Jack so intent to make sail before. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Chris carried out her duties without another word and the _Black Pearl_ departed from Tortuga barely an hour after it had dropped anchor.

She reached Port Royale very early the following morning, making the voyage the best time that the _Pearl_ had ever sailed. They anchored in the trustworthy hidden cove, and Jack commanded everyone to stay aboard the _Pearl_ and keep the guns primed, save for himself, Gibbs, and Chris (Loki in tow and Pearl being looked after by Davy). Much of the crew murmured against their captain, curious and confused to why they had sailed to Port Royale, but Gibbs put a stop to that and placed Marty in charge in his stead.

It was still dark when the three pirates and monkey followed the familiar trail into Port Royale and up to the Turner house. "Captain, what are we –?" Gibbs questioned, but Jack raised a hand.

"Shh! Ye want to wake the whole house?" Jack asked, entering the gates. Chris, Gibbs, and Loki looked at each other but said nothing as they followed their captain to the front step of the house and Jack rapped on the door loudly, breaking the formerly peaceful silence. Loki was so startled he fell from Chris' shoulder, and with embarrassment upon his features, slunk back to his perch.

It was a few moments before someone answered the door, and Chris almost laughed. Bootstrap Bill, having aged only a year or two, was standing in his night dress and a cap when the door opened. Chris could have never pictured the burly partly-aboriginal man she had met on a desert island dressed as such. Reminding herself of the situation that she happened to be in, she found holding in her laughter to be surprisingly easy.

"Jack! What are ye –?" Bootstrap began, his features full of surprise.

"Get Will and Liz. There's a problem." Jack said plainly, and Chris looked at Jack with surprise. Hope surged through her. _He isn't going to forget them after all! It's all a ruse to get them to safety!_

"I suppose there is, all of you just showing up in the middle of the night." Bootstrap said, pulling the door open and motioning them inside.

"Technically, it's early morning, Bill. Get yer time right." Jack said, smiling. Bootstrap had them sit on the couch and sofa in the front room, and he stoked up the fire and placed a log upon it before retreating upstairs to get Will and Liz. While he was gone, Chris turned to her husband.

"Ye scared me, Jack! I thought ye were just goin' to let the pirates blow the Turners to kingdom come with everyone else in Port Royale!"

Jack grinned. "Who says I'm not?" He asked. Chris was not able to answer, for Elizabeth and Will arrived with Bootstrap at that moment. Elizabeth was wearing a floral robe over her nightgown, and Chris was partly disappointed that Will was not wearing a nightgown, but trousers and a robe.

"Jack." Elizabeth said, nodding to him. "Chris, Gibbs. I can't assume that anything good has happened, can I?"

"Unfortunately not." Chris replied, and the Turners took a seat, prompting Jack to sit forward on the sofa, his hands together.

"Here's the situation: Chesed pissed off about ninety percent of the population of Tortuga. They have gathered an armada to teach Chesed a lesson. The remaining ten percent are helping anyway. The earliest they can be here is either tomorrow night or the next morning. They're coming here to burn the port, and probably kill most, if not all, its inhabitants." Chris watched as Elizabeth's jaw dropped lower and lower with each sentence, and Will and Bootstrap's brows furrowed identically. "We were sent as a forerunner, to deactivate your defenses. We need to get yer family and the population of Port Royale out of here before they arrive or it will be more than a blood-bath."

Chris didn't think Jack would extend the rescue to the rest of the population of Port Royale. Her eyebrows arched in surprise as Will grumbled, "And it would be for nothing anyway. Chesed isn't even here."

"Can we get some people out on the Pearl?" Bootstrap asked.

"O' course. We'll need the use of more than her to save everyone." Jack replied. "We're already just about full with our crew; we can't spare too much room.

"We need to go find Norrington, then. He has command of more than one ship, I'm sure." Chris said. "And he could probably wrangle together some merchants to help as well."

"Why don't we stand and fight?" Elizabeth asked, fury and rebellion in her eyes. "We can take them."

Will turned to his wife. "Elizabeth, think of the children. What if we're overrun? Would you want them living as orphans?" The look on her face plainly said that she did not.

"We'd best head to Fort Charles, then." Gibbs said, pulling himself to his feet. "That's still where Norrington is, aye?"

"Let's get on some clothes so he takes us seriously first." Bootstrap recommended. While the Turners changed, Chris slipped her hand in Jack's, squeezed it, and smiled at him. He was still a pirate, but he was something more, and she felt pride in her breast for what he was doing.

The Turners returned, clothed and with a serving maid to keep an eye on their slumbering children, and the six people and single monkey departed from the house. Chris' mind strayed to Pearl, wondering if she was still asleep or if she had woken up to find her parents missing, but Uncle Davy watching over her. The words that Elizabeth had said about leaving her children as orphans echoed in Chris' ears. She vaguely wondered if one day pirating would leave Pearl as an orphan. These dismal thoughts were forced to vanish, however, as she and her friends had made excellent time travelling through the darkened Port Royale, and they were approaching Fort Charles.

Since Elizabeth was the governor's daughter she was able to use her status to bypass the soldiers and go directly to the commodore's office. Jack rapped upon the door loudly, and they only had to wait for a matter of seconds before the door was thrown open. "What's this?" James Norrington asked, standing in the doorway. His wig was askew, his officer's jacket was unbuttoned, and his feet were bare, but Chris marveled at the speed he must have dressed to have answered the door mere seconds after Jack had knocked.

"James, we need to speak to you." Elizabeth said, and the commodore's eyes met hers first before panning behind her to see who else accompanied. Loki cocked his head to the side and chattered.

"The Turners showing up with pirates early in the morning? Unfortunately, this does _not_ surprise me." With a look of resigned defeat on his face, Norrington swung the door open as an invitation to come in. He grabbed a bottle of scotch from his desk and placed it in a cupboard and out of sight as the visitors filed in and closed the door. Norrington's gaze lingered upon Chris for a moment before he addressed them all, his hand straying to his scabbarded sword upon his desk. "What is the adventure today?" _Has Jamie grown a sense of humor since we last met_?

"Now listen closely, Commodore, because I don't feel like explainin' this again." Jack said, before informing Norrington of everything he had previously told the Turners. As Norrington listened, he blanched slightly.

"And you came this entire way to tell us?" Norrington asked. Jack nodded. Norrington looked at the pirate captain for a second before saying with a smile, "Captain Sparrow… You are without a doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of."

"Ye're making me blush." Jack replied, grinning. Chris had no idea what the exchange between the two of them meant, but it seemed to be an inside joke. The fact that her husband and brother could have an inside joke was even more unsettling than them trading grins.

Norrington set to buttoning his jacket and retrieved his stockings and shoes from his sleeping quarters. He finished dressing as he spoke. "Our Navy ships can help carry the citizens. We'll have to move them to Kingston; it's closest by and has reinforcements." He straightened his wig and placed his sword around his waist. "I'd best wake the governor." He said, looking to Elizabeth.

"I'd like to speak with him as well." Jack informed Norrington. All in the room stared at him.

"I—I – We'll see." Norrington replied, and with that, the crowd departed from Fort Charles. As they headed up the hills of Port Royale, Norrington fell into step besides Chris and asked, "Just what is he up to?"

Chris shrugged. "I was surprised that he wants to make sure that everyone in Port Royale, not just the Turners, is saved. Your guess is as good as mine."

"Just the Turners, hmm?" Norrington asked, looking sideways at his little sister.

"Oh, shut up, I would have made sure you'd have known too." Chris replied. She believed she saw a shadow of a smile on Norrington's lips, but it vanished as they headed up the drive to the governor's mansion.

Governor Swann's maid answered, looking sleepy and disoriented, and was reluctant to let the crowd in before she saw Elizabeth with them. "Of course miss!" She piped. "Why didn't you say so, miss? Come in!" The crowd was seated in a parlor almost identical to Will and Elizabeth's own while the maid retrieved the governor. Governor Swann soon came downstairs, clad in a thick robe and wearing a nightcap to cover the fact that he wasn't wearing his opulent wig.

"Elizabeth, William, what's –?" He asked, and then he spotted the three pirates. "Oh no – James, but you're here too!"

"I am as well." Bootstrap added, waving.

"What is going on?" Governor Swann asked, sinking into a cushioned chair. Jack and Norrington described the situation to the governor as quickly as possible and when they were finished, Governor Swann held a trembling hand to his brow and then looked at his daughter and the commodore. "Kingston is the best course of action." He agreed. "We'd best move quickly –"

"Hold on, Guv'." Jack held up his hands. "Since I'm saving your lives here, I'd like a couple favors." The governor and commodore both shot looks that could kill at Jack, but he ignored them and began listing his demands. "One: I want pardons written for all my crew and Chris here." Chris cast him a sidelong glance. What was he up to? "Two: Chris is pregnant." Chris received several looks of astonishment from the Turners, and an unreadable expression from her brother. Jack decided to take offense to it. "_Stop_ making that disgusted face, _commodore_. We already have a child, and when Chris was pregnant with her, she was unable to stay at sea for the last few months without risking her life and the child's. I would like you and your family to keep her, our daughter, and our coming child safe until after delivery, and I'll come 'round to collect them and ye won't see us for a long time, savvy?" Jack paused for a moment before concluding, "I think for saving the lives of the entire populace of Port Royale, that's a very small price for ye to pay."

"We already know, though, governor." Norrington began. "If you—"

"No, no James. It is fair." Govern Swann said, even though he looked alarm at the proposed demands. "I-I suppose it all can be arranged." He stuttered.

"Well then!" Jack stood and clapped his hands. "Let's wake the good folks of Port Royale and get started!" The occupants of the house began filing for the door, and Jack fell into step besides Chris. "Bet ye never thought ye'd have a maternity leave in a governor's house, eh Chris?"

"Jack, are you sure that was the best idea?" Chris hissed.

"Hey, we agreed we needed to find you somewhere safe. Where could be safer than the house of the governor of Port Royale?" He winked at her before walking ahead to talk to Will and Bootstrap. Norrington replaced Jack at Chris' side.

"Pregnant?" He asked, his voice low. "And you already have another?" Chris simply nodded and Norrington shook his head. "I knew that the _Black Pearl_ had been missing from the Caribbean, but I never imagined you were off having a baby –"

"I wasn't." Chris said. "Alright, well I did, but we were in the Mediterranean, trying to make Chesed forget about us."

"Why?" Norrington asked. "I mean, there are obvious reasons, but what would make you want to go all the way to Europe?"

Chris reached up and ran her finger along the scar the rope left on her neck from almost meeting her demise at the end of a noose. It wasn't really noticeable unless she was upset or too hot; it would turn red during those circumstances, but it was still present. Norrington's mouth opened in shock as he realized what it was. "Some day, I think you and I need to sit down and speak about just what I get myself into."

Norrington shook his head. "It appears, if this plan is successful, that the day will be quick in coming." Governor Swann suddenly realized, halfway down the drive, that he was clad in nothing but a robe, his nightgown, and his night cap, and he called for them to wait while he returned to his house and dressed appropriately. As Governor Swann sashayed by, Norrington asked, "Do I have a niece or nephew?"

"A niece." Chris replied. "Her name is Pearl."

Norrington arched an eyebrow. "You let her be named after a ship?"

"Damn, I was hoping you wouldn't catch that…" Chris said, and then she and Norrington laughed, causing the others present to look at them in surprise. Their laughter faded away but, once again, Chris felt as though nothing had ever happened between when James had left for his post in the Caribbean to the present.

Once Governor Swann was dressed and Norrington had retrieved some soldiers from Fort Charles (some were sent with Bootstrap and Gibbs to have the _Pearl_ sail into the harbor), the work of waking the citizens began. The townsfolk of Port Royale were not very happy to be woken before the sun had risen, nor were they very happy or cooperative when told that they had to leave their homes and belongings because a fleet of pirates were coming to pillage the town. Many adamantly refused to budge from their homes, and while those who voluntarily left their homes were being settled into berths in Navy ships, once the _Pearl_ dropped anchor, Jack and his crew of pirates set to scaring the squatters from their homes and to the harbor, at which point Norrington corralled them onto his ships.

In the afternoon, Jack leaned on his sword and watched lazily as their latest 'charge' ran down the streets, the wife half-dragging her husband behind her. A lazy smile graced his lips and he stood, stretched, and asked Chris, "Is that the last?" Norrington had provided them with a list of addresses to make their work easier to push those who had refused to budge. All were crossed off but one.

"One more and we can get the Hell out of here." Chris was looking forward to leaving Port Royale. Her back was aching terribly, as were her feet, and that combination plus the usual fatigue of being pregnant and the lack of sleep the previous night was wearing on her. She also wanted to see her Pearly sometime today, and maybe, if there was time, introduce Pearl to her Uncle Jamie.

"Let's get it done, then. Come on mates!" Jack waved his small band of 'persuaders' forward and they headed for the last house on the street. The small band consisted of Marty, Pintel, Bootstrap ("Just for kicks and giggles, as it were!" he announced jubilantly as he joined them), Jack and Chris. They came to a stop before one of the more fashionable places of living. Ivy crept up the walls and the window boxes carried vivid flowers in bloom up the side of the two story house. Jack approached and kicked down the door immediately. "Let's go lads!" He commanded, and yelling battle cries, the troupe stomped up the staircase.

"I'll remain down here for a second wave of terror!" Chris called after her husband and friends' retreating backs. Chris did not feel like climbing a lofty staircase because her back decided to let out a pulse of pain that almost brought her to her knees. She teetered to a sofa and sat down on it, squeezing her eyes shut. She really needed a drink – but it would probably make her sick on top of the pain.

There was a yell upstairs and Chris heard a body hit the floor. Alarm surging through her body, she ignored her back and feet pain and stamped up the stairs as fast as she could. She went into the first open room she saw and inside, she found Marty sprawled on the floor and Bootstrap and Jack countering a man holding a now broken mandolin. Pintel stood by the door, his pistol raised.

"Come on! Come on, you bastards, have at me!" The man cried, brandishing the mandolin. Chris quickly realized the man as her father, Lord Howard Thomas. She realized that he must have continued to Port Royale after they had attacked the ship he had booked passage on. James hadn't told her – But she didn't need to dwell on that now; it looked like he had taken Marty out and was in the process of doing the same to Bootstrap and Jack.

Lord Thomas' back was to Chris and Pintel, and so she took the chance and leaped onto his back, wrapping an arm around his neck and applying pressure. Lord Thomas dropped his mandolin and his hands flew up to Chris' arm and attempted to pry it from his neck. Chris simply applied more pressure. Her aim was not to kill her father, but simply make him slip into unconsciousness. Lord Thomas stumbled around, struggling to throw Chris from his back, but he was unsuccessful and eventually collapsed into unconsciousness.

"I think he recognized me." Jack said as Chris checked to ensure that her father was breathing. He was.

"So he attacked you with a mandolin?" Chris asked, rising.

"No, he attacked Marty." Jack said, pointing to the unconscious man. Chris fell next to him and found that besides being unconscious, he had a bloody nose, but nothing else in the way of wounds.

Chris shook her head. "Let's get them down to the _Pearl_." Bootstrap hoisted Marty onto his shoulders, Jack did the same with Lord Thomas with Pintel carrying his feet, and the four pirates and their quarry headed down to the harbor with the last living residents of Port Royale.

The ships slowly left the harbor in thirty minute increments throughout the rest of the day until only the _Resolute_ and the _Black __Pearl_ were the only ones left. The latter carried the Turners and the still unconscious Lord Thomas. The _Resolute_ carried Governor Swann and many other high-ranking officials of Port Royale. Norrington, the governor, Jack, Chris, Gibbs, Bootstrap, Will, and Elizabeth all met in Norrington's cabin on the _Resolute_ one last time before either would sail for Kingston. Chris' back was continuing to pain her and she had become pale after the day's activities. Norrington made sure she was seated.

Governor Swann was flummoxed as to why they were not sailing immediately. "Why are we having a meeting?" He demanded once all were settled. "We're almost to safety, must we really discuss anything else."

"Aye, but now we're talking about my safety, Gov'." Jack said, tapping a finger to his chest. "I'm pretty sure those nice pirates that are coming wouldn't be pleased to know I helped ye all to escape, and if they find the port simply empty after we were supposed to have been here as disabling the harbor defenses, they're going to think something is up. We need a ruse for why the town's deserted, and we need it before we leave."

Elizabeth was the one who came up with the answer. "Yellow fever. We could make it look like there was an outbreak of yellow fever here, and that many have died. All we need to do is dig some pits and then fill them up again, and perhaps break a couple of windows, doors, and make a mess out of the inside of all the buildings to make it look like the places have been ransacked and left in a hurry."

"I think she's onto something." Bootstrap said, tapping his chin.

"Aye!" Jack stood from his chair. "And I know exactly who can carry the job out while we're done." Jack turned to Bootstrap. "Ye still in touch with Robins?"

"The outlaw?" Governor Swann asked, blanching.

"Course I am, Jack. You don't meet friends like that every day." Bootstrap replied, ignoring his daughter-in-law's father.

"Think they'd like to replenish their supplies free of cost?" Jack asked, grinning.

"Now just a minute, I will not let my port be pillaged –" Governor Swann began objecting.

"It's going to happen either way, Governor." Norrington said softly but firmly. "We might as well let it happen to cover our tracks, don't you think?" Chris smiled at her brother. For being a commodore, he certainly could think like an efficient pirate sometimes.

"I – I suppose." Governor Swann stuttered.

"Let's go get our friends working, then." Jack said, rubbing his hands together. "Then we can take the Turners to Kingston and return in time to greet the coming pirates and give them the story."

Everyone stood and began to file from the cabin. Will came to his wife and kissed her forehead. "I think you should stay onboard with the children, and… perhaps Chris. She doesn't look well."

"It's nothing." Chris insisted, standing and tottering slightly. "My back is killin' me…"

Jack's husband interrupted her. "I think ye should listen to Will, Chris. 'sides, you haven't seen Pearl yet today, have you? Let the men take care of this." Chris punched Jack on the same shoulder she had punched when she learned he was pregnant. Her husband flinched. "Will you stop that? Ye're going to break something."

"Chris, if you wouldn't mind, I'd enjoy the company." Elizabeth said, defusing the situation as delicately as possible. "You haven't seen the children, and they haven't met Pearl."

Chris looked from her husband to Elizabeth and said, "Aye, we could do that." The women then departed the cabin and headed for the neighboring _Black Pearl_ while the men headed inland to find Robins and his band of escapees and outlaws.

Chris soon witnessed that Ali was growing into a very lovely young woman with eyes like her mother and the hair of her father. She greeted Chris warmly and asked where Uncle Jack was. "He'll return soon, and ye can jump all over him like you used to." Chris assured. Ali blushed and smiled. Liam, her little brother that was born shortly after her family was reunited, was five years old and had a curly mop of black hair and golden brown eyes. He didn't quite remember Chris, but he gave Chris a shy hug. Tobias was only three and had curly brown hair and brown eyes, and lastly was a new infant named Noah, who had been placed in the care of the Turners' maid during the happenings of the day.

Chris retrieved Pearl from Cotton (who had taken over from Davy), asking if she had behaved, and receiving a kiss on the cheek and a drawing of Loki from her daughter. Cotton's Parrot cawed, "Wind in the sails!" And Cotton patted Pearl on the head before leaving to attend to his duties.

"I have some people I want you to meet, Pearly." Chris said as she picked her daughter up and balanced her on her hip, even though her back was killing her and she was run ragged from not getting any sleep the night before. Pearl said nothing. "They're friends of Mummy and Daddy, and they have some children you can play with."

"Are they nice?" Pearl asked, tugging on Chris' bandana.

"Yes they are, sweetheart." Chris assured, and she returned to the poop deck, where the children would play until the men returned and sail would be made. When she arrived, Elizabeth and her children turned to Chris and Pearl and the quartermaster turned to her daughter. "This is Pearl, everyone." Chris announced. "Pearl, that's your Auntie Elizabeth, and that's Ali, Liam, Tobias, and Noah."

Pearl shyly looked at the strangers and buried her head into Chris' shoulder. Elizabeth chuckled and said, "Let's just sit for a while; maybe she'll warm up to them." Liam had brought a ball from the Turner house and the children now engaged in a game with it. Loki had lowered himself down from the rigging, and did his best to try and steal the ball and carry it into the rigging before the children could catch him.

After a short time, Liam broke off from his siblings and walked over to Pearl, who was sitting on her mother's lap next to Elizabeth. He held up a hand to Pearl and said, "I like your hair." Elizabeth smiled at Chris as Liam continued. "Want to play with our ball?"

"Yeah." Pearl very decidedly scooted off of her mother's lap and took Liam's hands. Together they joined the other children in their game.

"Liam, my little peace keeper…" Elizabeth chuckled appreciatively. "Oh, bless him."

"Four kids, hmm?" Chris asked, looking on as Loki nabbed the ball and did his best to lope to one of the lines to the top. The children caught him before he could climb. "Any more of 'em poppin' out, Elizabeth?" Chris asked, looking sideways at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth laughed. "Oh no, I think we're quite happy with four. How many do you think you and Jack will go to?"

Chris shrugged. "This one was a surprise, and any pregnancies mean that I can't sail for the last half of them. I think this may be it; I hate bein' away from Jack."

Elizabeth sighed wistfully. "I can't even imagine being away from Will for long… I'm glad he resisted the pull of the sea." Chris smiled meekly and looked down at the bump of her stomach. To think that soon, she and Jack would be separated again was dismal... She sighed.

"Do ye mind if I head to me cabin and lay down? Me back is killin' me and I haven't had any sleep in… I can't remember how long."

"Of course!" Elizabeth replied. "If Pearl gets upset, I'll come find you."

The quartermaster smiled at the other woman and headed down to the door leading to the captain's cabin, but then thought better of it. The children would be running on the deck above and may keep her awake, so instead she decided to head down to her old cabin, which had been left unoccupied except for the odd sick pirate every now and then. She'd be more at peace there.

She headed down into the forecastle and as she approached her former cabin door, she heard movement from inside. She thought it odd and swung open the door to find her father lying in her former bed. His limbs were tied so that he couldn't escape and a gag was also tied in his mouth. Chris' lips parted in surprise; Jack had been responsible for finding accommodations for her father, but she didn't expect him to do _this_.

"Hold still – Damn it, Jack." Chris said, walking to her father. He settled upon seeing her, but he kept a suspicious eye on her as she untied the gag and threw it to the floor. "How long have ye been conscious?"

"About half an hour. These damned ropes are so tight!" Lord Thomas exclaimed, and then on further reflection, he remarked, "Say 'you,' not 'ye,' Christiana."

Chris almost burst out laughing. She forgot that he used to correct both her and James' English when she was younger. "I'm going to untie _you_, but while I do, I think I should explain where you are."

"No need." Lord Thomas replied. "You obviously have abducted me aboard that damned pirate vessel you attacked with and plan to hold me for ransom. I would have expected better of you, Christiana."

Chris did snicker now. "No. We're taking all citizens of Port Royale to Kingston because a large pirate armada is heading this way and aiming to blow Port Royale and all those in it to kingdom come. We were trying to help, but then you had to bust out that mandolin –"

"Pirates had broken into my house, what do you expect Christiana?" Lord Thomas asked. Chris loosed the last bond and Lord Thomas swung himself to a sitting position, rubbing his chafed wrists and ankles.

"Do you need anything?" Chris asked, realizing her plan for napping seemed to be ill-fated, and she might as well ensure that her father was comfortable while she was in his presence.

"Not from you, I don't." Lord Thomas said very coldly. "Why don't you just go back to your wicked friends and leave me be?"

Chris didn't know if it was the fact that she was tired, or that she ached, or that she was dreading the impending departure from Jack, but she found herself very angry and upset at her father's words. "Why do you treat me like this?" Chris snapped, looking down at her sitting father. "I am still your daughter; why are you treating me so cruelly? Jack and I and all of these _pirates_ are saving your life!"

"That may be, but you are not my daughter." Lord Thomas replied. "My daughter died the moment she agreed to become a pirate. You are nothing but a thief masquerading in her skin." If Chris had thought he had spoken to her harshly aboard the merchant ship, it was nothing compared to how biting his words now were. She actually trembled and felt tears beginning to well in her eyes. _Damn it, you will not start acting like a damn woman right now, Chris!_

"You have no idea what has made me the person I am today." Chris said as evenly as she could. "You may have no idea who I am, but I am still your daughter."

"I don't know who you are, but I know what you are. You're a pirate." Lord Thomas spat the word.

"Did you know what Lord Malcolm was?" His daughter fired back. "Did James not write and tell you just who and what Lord Malcolm was?" Chris could see by her father's face that he did indeed know that Lord Malcolm had turned out to be a pirate. "You sent me to him without a second thought, I'm sure."

"It was time for you to take a husband; I thought he was a good man –"

"And he thought you were a fool." Chris said, her tone not angry or spiteful, but calm. "He told me himself. He thought you were a fool." That silenced her father for a moment. "He played you, Father. He played you to get what he wanted."

"I only wanted what was best for you, Christiana." Lord Thomas said, looking up at her. "He was the best I could have done."

"I know that." Chris replied. "But you know that he was pirate. Do you think that maybe, just maybe God wanted me to turn pirate? It seems either way, I would have found this path."

"You chose this path; it did not choose you." Lord Thomas retorted.

Chris wished that there was a chair that she could pull out to sit, but all of the furniture other than the bed had been emptied from her cabin after she and Jack married. "Do you know how I found this path?" Chris asked. "The _Eliza May_ was attacked by pirates, and the captain gave me up in return for his ship." Lord Thomas obviously did not know this bit of information, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. "I was taken captive by their captain, Torin Malloy. And I am lucky that he was an honorable man and simply wanted to ransom me back to you and keep my maidenhood intact."

"I never received any ransom demand!" Lord Thomas exclaimed, bemusement riddling his features.

"He was never able to send one." Chris continued. "Shortly after I was taken hostage, a Spanish ship attacked us. I happened to be on deck when this happened, and so I was caught in the crossfire. I had to fight or die," Lord Thomas' mouth opened in surprise as she continued. "So I pulled a sword from a body and tried to defend myself. By sheer luck, I killed the first man to try and do the same to me, and then I saw that Captain Malloy was about to be killed by the Spanish captain. I leaped in to intervene, and the Spanish captain decided to do away with me before finishing Captain Malloy off." Chris pulled down the shoulder of her shirt to reveal the thin scar upon her left shoulder. "The captain gave me this and was about ready to finish me off when Captain Malloy threw a shoe at him and gave just enough of a distraction for me to slit his throat." Chris had watched as her father grew more and more disbelieving until at this last grisly detail, he looked like he might pass out from what he was being told. "After that, I decided I wasn't going to let anyone else control my life unless I let them. I wasn't going to let you; I wasn't going to let Lord Malcolm. **That** is why I became a pirate."

"You could have come home." Lord Thomas stuttered out of his stupor. "You _should_ have come home."

"Would you have wanted me?" Chris asked plainly. "Would you have wanted a daughter who had killed two men living in your house, pretending it had never happened?"

"How many more have you killed since then?" Lord Thomas asked. "If only you had come home then, how many more lives would have been spared?"

"I have only killed when the life of myself or my friends were threatened. Don't you dare think me a common murderer." Chris growled.

Lord Thomas looked to the floor, a trembling hand upon his mouth. "This is my fault." He finally said. "I should have waited, I should have waited for Adam to grow older, and then this never would have happened –"

Chris thought to her friend Adam and the last time she had seen him and his daughter Morgana. "Adam had a different path to follow, and his has led to a beautiful daughter. Mine…" Chris touched her baby bump, suddenly feeling a strong impression that her father's decision was the best he could have ever made for his daughter. "Mine led to my husband."

"Husband?" Lord Thomas echoed. "You're married?"

Chris nodded, unable to contain a smile. "I am married to Captain Jack Sparrow." Chris immediately thought she had gone too far. Lord Thomas clutched his chest and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Chris said, "We have a daughter and another child on the way. So, you see Father, you really did what was best for me. I would never want a different life than the one I have now."

Lord Thomas joined his hands together, and they trembled. Chris saw his eyes wet with tears and his Adam's apple was bobbing up and down with emotion. He reached forward. "Forgive me…" He pled quietly. "Forgive me."

Chris took her father's hands, her entire heart and soul feeling at peace. "You need to meet your granddaughter." Chris said, pulling her father to his feet.

"My granddaughter…" Lord Thomas murmured as though in a daze. Daughter led father up the stairs and onto deck before leading him up the steps to the poop deck. Chris observed as they approached that Loki had finally been able to snatch the ball and keep it away from the children long enough to get up into the rigging. All the children were looking upwards expectantly, with Elizabeth standing on her tip-toes trying to reach Loki, but he was just out of reach. As Chris and Lord Thomas approached, Elizabeth noticed and stopped reaching. She seemed prepared for an argument or something hostile to happen, but what pleasantly surprised when Lord Thomas asked, "Which one is my granddaughter?"

"Pearly, I know you've met a lot of people today –" Chris began, and Pearl walked forward from Liam's side.

"Yep." She confirmed. Elizabeth smiled.

"But this is your Grandfather Howard." Chris said. "This is my daddy."

"Oh." Pearl said, seeming quite indifferent to the introduction.

"You're trying to get the ball?" Lord Thomas asked, stepping forward.

"Yes, but it's too high." Liam said.

Lord Thomas crouched down so that he was eye-level with Pearl. "Pearl, do you think if I hoisted you onto my shoulders that you could reach the ball?"

"Yep." Pearl replied.

"Then let's do our best, shall we?" Lord Thomas hoisted Pearl onto his shoulders and walked below the rigging where Loki perched. Loki let out a low coo as Pearl reached up and snatched the ball from his paws. Pearl let out a battle cry of victory and the other children cheered. Loki chattered and dropped onto Chris' shoulder, doing his best to sulk as Lord Thomas lowered Pearl and joined the children in their game.

Jack returned hours later with news of the destruction Robins and his band of outlaws exacted upon Port Royale. They burned out half the fort, ransacked all stores, broke windows, tore doors off their hinges, and dug two very large ditches and filled them with old meat from the two butcher shops before covering them back up again and pounding crosses into the ground so that they appeared to be mass graves. Last of all, they painted streaks of yellow across some of the more derelict buildings so it looked as though they had been marked in warning of Yellow Fever.

Upon Jack's return, Chris took him by the hand and said, "I need to properly introduce you to someone." She then led Jack into the captain's cabin, where Lord Thomas sat with Pearl, telling her a story of Norrington and Chris when they were young. Lord Thomas broke off his story as his daughter and her husband entered, and he stood, holding Pearl's hand. "Jack, this is my father, Lord Howard Thomas." Chris said, stepping to the side.

"Howard is fine." Lord Thomas said, offering his hand. Jack eyed it suspiciously before slowly taking the hand and shaking it.

"Sorry for the rope burn, Howie." Jack said, shrugging.

Lord Thomas smiled. "That is quite a stunning hat." He observed. "Where did you get it?"

"That, Howie, is a long story." Jack said, releasing Lord Thomas' hand.

"We have time, don't we?" Lord Thomas asked.

Shortly after, the _Resolute_ left Port Royale's harbor, with the _Black Pearl_ following an hour later. The _Black __Pearl_ encountered the pirate fleet just before they turned northwest to Kingston, and at the head of the fleet was the _Tout de _Suite. Giles ordered his men to take in sail long enough to speak to Jack across the water.

"Jacques, why are you not in Port Royale?" Giles questioned, his eyebrows furrowing.

"We showed up and found the blasted place empty!" Jack exclaimed and then continued. "Everything looks like they left in a hurry, and some of the buildings were striped yellow. We think we found two huge mass graves as well."

"Are you certain?" Giles asked.

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't, mate. Then we got to thinkin' maybe there was a sickness that wiped everyone out or forced them to leave. We didn't want to catch nothin', plus Chris is pregnant and our daughter's aboard; I couldn't risk them getting' sick!"

Giles twisted the ends of his mustache in thought. "We shall continue forward, Jacques. If it has been long enough, I zink we shall be fine."

"Watch over yerselves then, mate! We'll see ye next time in Tortuga!" Jack waved at his friend and the two ships parted ways. Weeks later, the crew of the _Black Pearl_ learned that the pirates did continue onto Port Royale, but since no one seemed to be getting sick, and since there was an entire town there, empty and free for the taking, several pirates stayed and moved into the finer houses of Port Royale, and were soon joined by Robins and his band of outlaws. Governor Swann and those who saved the citizens of Port Royale didn't realize it at the time, but they unwittingly created a second large pirate port in the Caribbean.

In the distance between the pirate fleet and Kingston, the _Black Pearl_ went through a transformation so that her aid of Port Royale would go unknown as long as possible. The _Pearl_'s black sails were replaced with blindingly pristine white ones. The lettering naming her the _Black Pearl_ was covered up, renaming her _Buena Vista_, and the pirates shucked off their piratical clothing and attired themselves in more 'civilized' clothing. When the false _Buena Vista_ arrived in Kingston, she was hailed as one of the saviors of Port Royale and many of the pirates were treated to complimentary rum in the taverns of the port. The official word was that Port Royale did indeed suffer a plague and it just so happened that the townsfolk evacuated right before a large pirate fleet swooped in to destroy the port.

Upon Governor Swann's arrival in Kingston, he declared that he was retiring from his governorship, since he no longer had a colony to govern. Accommodations were made for him and he was given a large house as fine as his previous one in Port Royale. Norrington took up an office in Fort Augusta and settled right in. Will was able to work as a blacksmith for Fort Augusta until he could start up his own shop, and he and his family moved into a snug little house overlooking the harbor. Lord Thomas had a good deal of funds ready at hand, so he easily secured a place to live and offered for Chris and Pearl to live with him while Jack was at sea instead of with Governor Swann. Governor Swann agreed, but asserted that Chris would still be under his protection.

Jack and the crew of the _Black Pearl_ stayed in Kingston long enough to see that Chris and Pearl were settled and taken care of, and long enough to receive the pardons from Governor Swann. Since he was no longer a governor, he predated the pardons to the month before and cited the reason as, "Invaluable Information Vital to the Survival of the Citizens of Port Royale." Once the pardons were written, signed and sealed, Jack took them and bade farewell to his wife, daughter, and his father- and brother-in-law before returning with Loki and his crew to another exciting, albeit lonelier, adventure at sea.

oOo

His old man was a rebel yeller  
Bad boy to the bone.  
He'd say: "Can't trust that other feller,"  
He'd judge 'em by the tone of their skin.  
He was raised to think like his Dad  
Narrow mind full of hate.  
On the road to nowhere fast,  
Till the Grace of God got in the way.  
Then he saw the Light an' hit his knees an' cried an' said a prayer:  
Rose up a brand new man; left the old one right there.

Here's to the strong; thanks to the brave.  
Don't give up hope: some people change.  
Against all odds, against the grain,  
Love finds a way: some people change.

She was born with her mother's habit  
You could say it's in her blood.  
She hates that she's gotta have it  
As she fills her glass up.  
An' she'd love to kill that bottle  
But all she can think about,  
Is a, a better life, a second chance.  
An' everyone she's letting down.  
She throws that bottle down.

Here's to the strong; thanks to the brave.  
Don't give up hope: some people change.  
Against all odds, against the grain,  
Love finds a way: some people change.

Thank God for those who make it:  
Let them be the Light.

Let them be the light  
Some people change.  
Here's to the strong; thanks to the brave.  
Don't give up hope: some people change.  
Against all odds, against the grain,  
Love finds a way: some people change.  
Some people change.


	25. Christmas and the Orient !

**Chapter Twenty-Five  
Christmas and the Orient**

The waves broke on the shore, carrying sand back with them. Pearl sat just beyond the surf's reach, playing with a pair of seashells she had found. Molding the sand with her shells, Pearl cooed with joy once they were made, and panicked when the surf reached up to wipe her 'canvas' clean. Chris sat nearby on a rock, watching. Her belly had grown very large, so she was once again wearing a huge shapeless dress, much to her dismay. She and Pearl had gone to the beach alone that day, for her father was busy meeting with a solicitor about the estate in England.

The entire reason why her father had come to the Caribbean was to try and persuade James to resign from the Navy and return with him back to the Thomas Manor outside of London. Since Norrington was not biologically Howard Thomas' son, but nor did he have any biological sons to pass on his inheritance and his only child was a daughter, Lord Thomas arranged for his title to be passed onto Norrington at the time of his death and, until that happened, Lord Thomas wanted Norrington to be in England and learning the responsibilities of a Lord. Norrington was also set up to eventually inherit the wealth of the Blacketts, his mother's family, and so he had a large amount of wealth and responsibility waiting for him. Norrington had refused to return to England as of yet, so Lord Thomas was going to wait in the Caribbean until his stepson agreed to do so.

"Pearly, do ye want to go for a walk at the docks, sweetheart?" Chris asked, pulling herself to her feet.

"Is Daddy back?" Pearl asked, turning from her shells. Almost every time Pearl saw a ship, she always asked if it was the _Pearl_, and she was always disappointed to learn that it was not.

"No, dear, but we could go look at the ships." Chris replied. She had not seen Jack since he had left months ago, and of course she was worried about whether or not he was fine, but she pushed the worries to the back of her mind. He couldn't very well sneak into Kingston whenever he felt like, could he?

"Alright." Pearl buried her two shells out of reach of the surf and marked it with an X. Chris smiled and held in a snicker as she picked up her daughter and they walked up the beach to the road that would lead them to the docks.

She and Pearl had settled into a routine in Kingston. In the morning, she and Pearl had breakfast with her father and before noon Chris and Pearl would go say 'Hello' to Governor Swann. He would usually inquire as to how she and Pearl were and ask if she thought anyone suspected her of being something more than the daughter of a lord. After this, Chris and Pearl would walk to the Turners and take lunch with the family, and afterwards the children would lie down for a nap and Chris, Elizabeth, and Ali would have time to themselves to do what they wished. When the children awoke, they would play for a short while before Chris and Pearl returned to Lord Thomas' house and Pearl would tell her grandfather everything she had done that day. They would soon have dinner, and then Lord Thomas would read to Pearl or play games with her until bedtime. Sometimes Chris and Lord Thomas stayed up late talking about things that had happened while they were parted, and other times they would go directly to bed. Norrington sometimes joined them for dinner, and every Sunday he would come from Fort Augusta to spend the day with his family. While it was nice, Chris missed the creaking of the rigging and the movement of a ship underfoot and Loki's mischievous antics. Most of all, she missed Jack.

As the mother and daughter began a stroll down the docks, a trio of men caught Chris' eye. They were all dressed in oriental robes made of silk, and arguing with the dock master. As she drew closer, she realized that she knew each of those men. Uncles Allen, Harry, and Peter seemed to be arguing over the docking fee of the _Death Rattle_ with the dock master. Chris was overjoyed to see them and felt like bounding up to them as a dog would, but her cargo (both child and pregnant belly) encumbered her flight of foot. She shifted Pearl to her other hip and came up behind the three gentlemen. "If ye're really going to be that stubborn about the docking fee, I'll split it." She said into Harry's ear.

The men whirled around and each of them had a different reaction on their face. Allen's was puzzled, Harry's was happy, and Peter's was surprised. "Chris!" They all chimed together and threw their arms around her.

Pearl was alarmed at all the arms suddenly flying toward her and she clutched her mother's arm tightly. "Bad hug! Bad hug!"

"'ey watch it!" Chris warned. The men stepped back, as if seeing Chris in a new light.

"What ze Hell is zat?" Harry asked, obviously perplexed at the child balanced upon his niece's hip.

"The correct question who be 'who,' dear brother." Peter said, cocking his head to the side.

"This is my daughter Pearl." Chris replied, patting the toddler's back. "Pearly, these are your crazy granduncles." Pearl arched an eyebrow and looked at them all. The dock master stood by, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Who's a little doll?" Allen asked, reaching forward to tickle Pearl's stomach. She giggled and pulled away. "Who's her father?" The older man turned his attention back to her mother.

Chris gave him a terse look. She didn't appreciate the stigma that came along with that question. "Jack, of course."

"Of course, of course." Allen replied, blushing a soft pink. Harry chuckled and punched his brother in the shoulder.

"He's out at sea, and I'm left behind because we're expecting again." Chris explained. "And someone owed him a favor."

"A bun in ze oven!" Harry exclaimed. He looked down at Chris' stomach. "Can I touch it?"

The forgotten dock master cleared his throat and the five looked at him with expressions that chastised him for interrupting. "Fine, here's your bloody money." Allen said, digging into one of the pockets of his robe and extracting a fistful of coins. "Seaside robbery, that's all docking fees are!"

Peter put a placating hand on Allen's shoulder and said, "Come on Allen, we have some catching up to do." He turned to Chris, pulling his brother with him and asked, "Is there somewhere we can catch up where we can get some food? I am dying to have a pudding and some fresh bread."

"Follow me." Chris led them to the main room of an inn named the Peeved Rooster. Harry called for food and drink, and they were obliged with bread pudding, fresh baked bread, a pat of newly churned butter, fresh goat's milk for Pearl, and weak ale for the adults.

Pearl's eyes opened wide at the bounty of food set before her and she asked, "Mummy, is that for us?"

"It's for you, little girl!" Allen pronounced, giving Pearl a large helping of bread pudding. "As much as you like, darling!"

Pearl gasped and picked up her spoon, digging in unabashedly and only pausing now and then to take a steadying breath. "Don't make a habit of spoiling her." Chris warned her uncles.

"It is ze job of uncles and grandfazzers to spoil ze little ones now and again, Chris. Let us do our job, for first impressions are ze most important, _oui_?" Harry asked.

Chris rolled her eyes and decided to turn her scrutiny onto her uncles themselves. She looked at the silk robes they wore and asked, "What is it with your crazy clothes?"

"We just returned from the Orient." Peter replied. "We lost our normal clothes there and needed new ones."

"'Lost,' dear brother?" Allen asked. "Would you like to detail just how we 'lost' our clothes?" Peter flushed a rich scarlet color and declared that he would not.

"'owever we 'appened to lose ze old ones, zey are just as comfortable as our old ones, zo I don't see ze need to change my dress, especially when it riles up zose damn English!" Harry informed Chris. She grinned.

"So how old is little Pearl there?" Allen asked. Pearl smiled up at her granduncle through a mouthful of bread pudding.

"Two, almost three." Chris replied. "Her birthday is this winter." They could learn more about her daughter later, but right now she wanted to know what her three pirate uncles were doing in a civilized port. "But moving on, I thought you were all known pirates. What are you doing in Kingston?"

"With some of the riches we brought back from the Orient added to the royal coffers, the King saw fit to drop any charges of law breaking and made us privateers in His employ." Peter said and then laughed bitterly. "I love how pardons are easily bought from a king."

"Stop it wiz your moping. Nobody cares, and it is how ze world is today. Accept it." Harry reprimanded his brother sharply. He turned back to Chris. "We figured we could settle wiz being legal, at least for a year or two. Long enough to enjoy ze fruits of civilization, and long enough to see where we can hit zem to piss zem off." Chris laughed.

"And we're here for the coming winter. We figured we'd stay under the pretense starting with a nice comfortable winter at a legal port." Allen said. "And I deduce you're here as well, and in a legal sense?"

"Aye." Chris replied.

"Well then, let's finish up our bread pudding –" Allen ruffled his grandniece's hair as she took a big breath to prepare for her next bite of the treat, "And you can help three bachelors gather together a suitable enough dwelling."

"I'm living with me dad right now, we have the extra rooms –" Chris began to suggest, but at the look from her uncles, she stopped. "What?"

"Your father is here?" Peter asked.

"Yes. So is Jamie." Chris said, shrugging.

Harry laughed. "We can 'ave an entire reunion!"

"Maybe we should have wintered somewhere else…" Allen worried.

"What are ye on about? I mean, sure, Jamie is a commodore, but you're legal now, and I thought ye all got on well with me dad in the past." Chris said, cocking her head to the side.

"Yes, but that was before we became pirates." Peter said. "Are you telling me your father, Lord Howard Thomas, was completely fine with the fact that his only child became a pirate?" Chris did not answer. "Exactly. We'd best find a house to ourselves for the winter."

It just so happened that while Chris and Pearl and the uncles were heading to the market to inquire about housing, they ran across the path of Lord Thomas as he left his solicitor. Lord Thomas was coming down the stairs just as the five were walking by, and they all froze in their tracks and stared at one another. Lord Thomas was the first to speak. "What is all this then?" he asked.

"They're here for the winter. We were going to find them a house to live in." Chris replied calmly and evenly.

"Uncle Allen and Peter and Harry gave me bread pudding, Grandfather!" Pearl informed Lord Thomas with a wide grin.

"I haven't seen you three in years." Lord Thomas stated. He turned back to his solicitor's door. "Come on in, Frank was just talking about how he was going to let one of his houses out. It should be big enough for you." And with the invitation, everything that might have been said or could have been said was swept under the rug, and the relationship between Lord Thomas and his three brothers-in-law began anew.

Winter fell in its entirety, and Chris became worried. Jack had not returned to Kingston, as he promised he would. That sent several scenarios off in Chris' head: Chesed caught him, he had been killed, the _Pearl_ had been shipwrecked, there was a mutiny, and on and on and on. As long as the weather was clear, she and Pearl would go for a walk on the beach, with the mother looking to the horizon and the daughter collecting seashells. But no matter how hard Chris strained her eyes, she was never greeted with the sight of black sails upon the horizon.

The first rain of winter fell while Chris was at the Turners for lunch one day. Her heart sank with the weather, and she found herself staring out the window at the harbor while the children played around her and Elizabeth tried to calm them. Her father-in-law noticed the pirate's melancholy. "He'll be here." Bootstrap said, coming up behind her and putting a fatherly arm around her. "He's just late. I know Jack and… Nothing could hinder him for long. Not a thing on this earth, especially when he has a child on the way."

Chris turned to him and smiled weakly. "I worry. I hate being away from him. Who's goin' to watch his tail if not me?"

Bootstrap shrugged. "I do remember there was a time in his life when you weren't around to watch his tail, and he turned out just fine, didn't he?" He smiled and Chris nodded. "He'll be fine, girl. Have faith."

December came, and Jack still wasn't back. Chris was nearing her due date, and she did not like thinking that Jack wouldn't be there to witness the birth of their second child. With her burgeoning belly, Chris was restricted to her father's house. She did not want for company, as her uncles were forever stopping by to see her and Pearl, and even speak with Lord Thomas. Norrington would usually visit in the evenings, and Elizabeth and Bootstrap would bring the children by, or take Pearl to their home so that she would not want for children to play with. Chris grew morose and melancholy and despaired whether or not Jack would arrive. What if something had happened to him? Would she never know?

As the twenty-fifth day of December drew near, a large tree was erected in Governor Swann's home and he invited the Sparrows, Turners, Lord Thomas, Norrington, and the pirate uncles to his home for a grand celebration on Christmas Eve. The event became the one thing that Chris could look forward to, as it would get her out of her father's house and provided something to break up the monotony that winter had become.

When Christmas Eve came, Chris decided that she was going to wear a smile and try to have a good time. Her stomach seemed to be twice or triple the size it had been with Pearl, but she tried to convince herself that it was just her imagination. Sure, she was fat, but she couldn't be that fat. Lord Thomas made sure that Chris had a new dress with more shape rather than the huge sack she had been wearing, and he also made sure that Pearl had a matching dress (without the extra material given to the stomach, of course). Norrington joined them, as well as the three uncles in their oriental garb, and the seven shared a rather tight carriage ride to the Governor Swann's home.

When they entered, they were greeted with the sight of the Christmas tree stretching up past the top banister of the staircase. It was decorated with candles, bobbles, and strings of beads, looking very festive. Though it was beautiful, Chris missed the sad little palm trees that would be used as their Christmas trees on Madagascar.

"Chris!" Bootstrap was wearing a rich red silk vest as he came down the stairs, his grandchildren clamoring around him and to Pearl as her Uncle Jamie set her down. They hauled Pearl off to play as Bootstrap kissed her cheek and said, "You look radiant."

"I assume that you're only comparing me to the girth of the sun." Chris said, arching an eyebrow. She heard Norrington chuckle at her side.

Bootstrap grinned and shook his head, offering his arm. "Come on, then." The adults enjoyed a delicious dinner of roast goose while the children popped in and out, grabbing a morsel whenever they were hungry, and sometimes going to their parents or relatives for kisses or hugs. Governor Swann obviously did not appreciate this state of dining by the look on his face, but with a simple hug and kiss from Ali, his hardened expression softened and he began to enjoy himself more.

When dinner was finished, the children were corralled into the front room and presents for and from the guests were passed around. Lord Thomas was helping Chris sit down while Allen, Harry, and Peter were helping dole out the presents, and then Chris felt a warm gush of fluid trickle down her leg. Her eyes went wide and she looked down to the puddle that was quickly spreading from underneath her skirt. She let out a groan and Norrington clutched her arm.

"What is it?" He asked. Lord Thomas paused in helping lower his daughter.

"My water just broke." Chris said. All eyes in the room looked to the puddle of fluid at her feet, and several of the children made noises of disgust.

Liam, on the other hand, stepped forward with Tobias and Pearl. "What's that?" he asked, and then stuck his hand in it. Tobias did the same. "Ooh, it's warm!"

"William Turner, get your hand out of that!" Will exclaimed. "You too Toby!"

"Mummy, what's happening?" Pearl asked.

Bootstrap elbowed his way forward and picked Pearl up. "Your little brother or sister is coming, that's what's happening." Bootstrap told her. He handed her to Allen as she began reaching for her mother. "Can you walk, Chris?"

Chris looked to her friend wide-eyed as she felt her first contraction ripple through her. "I – I don't think so." She stuttered. Another contraction pulsed, and she clutched Norrington's arm and her father's shoulder. Her contractions had not come this quickly with Pearl.

Bootstrap immediately went into the mode of a commanding officer. "James! Howard! Get her upstairs into one of the bedrooms now! Elizabeth, go with them. Will," He looked for his son, "Get something to clean up this water and make sure the kids don't start playing in it!" Will went to get a towel and Bootstrap took the now crying Pearl from her granduncles. "You three, go find a doctor!"

"What should I do?" Governor Swann asked, wringing his hands.

Bootstrap turned to his daughter-in-law's father and cocked his head to the side. "You stay right here and make sure none of the kiddies get upstairs. And take care of this one, will you?" Bootstrap handed Pearl to him and then led Norrington and Lord Thomas, who had each put a hand beneath Chris' rump and one on her shoulders, up the stairs and into an empty bedroom. Elizabeth followed with towels and hot water that had been reserved for tea.

"Here!" Bootstrap peeled the sheets back from the bed and Norrington and Lord Thomas laid the woman down. "Now let's get out of here; this is women's work."

Lord Thomas did not heed Bootstrap's advice. He took his daughter's hand. "Would you like me to stay with you?"

Chris did her best to keep her face calm. "No, no." She said, wincing as another contraction made her tremble with pain. "Go ahead and go wait with everyone else. I'll be fine." Lord Thomas squeezed his daughter's hand once and then left through the door.

Norrington, on the other hand, looked at his little sister and said, "I'm going to be right outside the door, Thimble. If you need me, do not hesitate. I'm not the only one who's stubborn, remember?" He smiled at his sister and followed his stepfather through the door.

Elizabeth helped Chris from her dress so that she was lying in naught but her shift on the bed. The contractions came closer and closer together, and Elizabeth was alarmed that Chris kept crying out and there was no doctor. "Just be calm, Chris, just be calm. Soon Pearl's going to have a new little brother or sister, won't that be lovely?" Elizabeth soothed, smoothing the hair from Chris' face.

"I want Jack to be here." Chris said, tears starting to well up her eyes. "He should be here…"

"I know darling." Elizabeth responded, squeezing her hand. "Be strong, be strong."

The next fifteen minutes were terrifying to Chris. Her contractions were suddenly right on top of each other and there was still no doctor. "What if we don't have a doctor?" Chris asked Elizabeth.

"I read a book about childbirth once, I'm sure I can manage." Elizabeth said, though her sallow complexion betrayed that she did not have that much confidence in her midwife skills.

At that moment, the door opened and Chris was going to scream what had taken so long, but when she saw who entered, her words escaped her. Davy flailed into the room, his doctor bag clutched in his hands, and Jack was following, looking haggard and pallid. Loki was on his shoulder, his brow furrowed.

"Cutting it a bit close, aren't you?" Elizabeth asked without missing a beat.

Jack ignored her and knelt next to the bed, taking the hand that Elizabeth was not holding. He leaned over his wife and kissed her on the forehead tenderly. "Sorry I'm late love, the waters were terribly rough." Jack said as he pulled away, grinning, "But looks like I made it for the show." Loki dropped down onto the headboard and chattered.

Chris was about to say something about him referring to the birth of their second child as a 'show,' but she did not. "You… _Pirate_!" She gasped. She clutched his hand, and relief swept through her. "You brought Loki… Hello, Loki." She looked at her small ape and he cocked his head to the side.

The doctor had meanwhile pulled sheets over Chris' legs and taken a look at the situation. "Oh my word Chris, you're fully dilated!" Davy exclaimed, looking at Chris. "The baby is ready, and it's ready now. Push!"

Chris was so relieved that Jack was there that she didn't even notice the pain as she pushed. Davy soothed her; counting out the seconds she should push. "One more big one, Chris, you can do it!"

"You can do it Chris!" Jack enthused, whispering into her ear. "We're going to be a mum and dad again, come on girl!"

Chris gritted her teeth, squeezed Jack and Elizabeth's hands, and pushed for all she was worth. "That's it – There we go!" Davy cried, and Chris felt the pressure lighten and crying filled the room. Elizabeth released Chris' hand and helped Davy clean the baby and cut the cord. Once the babe was swaddled, Davy looked up to the pirate captain. "Jack, I know you'll love me for what I'm about to say." He lifted the babe up to show the husband and wife. The baby had dark hair and eyes. "You have a son."

Jack threw his fist up into the air victoriously "YES! Jack Sparrow the second, ladies and gentleman!" He exclaimed, leaving Chris' side to take his son into his arms. The baby leered up at his father with uncertainty. "Yes! A Jack Sparrow will always rule the seven seas!" Jack exclaimed, dancing around the room with his son.

Chris smiled at her husband, but she still felt an immense pressure. "Davy, is everything alright down there?" Chris questioned.

The doctor raised an eyebrow and said, "One moment." He looked to see how things were and then popped his head back up. His face was ashen and his mouth opened and closed a few times before he exclaimed, "My goodness gracious! You're going to have another one! Jack, stop fooling around with him, you're distracting me!"

Jack stopped his dancing. His already pallid lost what color was left. "A-a-another baby?" He asked. He looked to Chris. "This is your fault." Chris gave him a rude hand gesture and commenced with pushing. Jack put the baby into the crook of his arm and returned to Chris' side, taking her hand. Less than five minutes later, the pressure was released in full and more squalling filled the room.

"You have a new daughter, Chris!" Davy cried, cleaning the baby off with one of the towels.

Chris collapsed back on the bed and Elizabeth came to her side to wipe her face with a wet towel. Loki seemed to want to help and began trying to grab the towel as Elizabeth moved it, causing him to be jerked back and forth. Chris had never before felt so exhausted, not even after going through a hurricane, or swimming a great distance to an island, or after being starved for days aboard the _Revenge_. Elizabeth wiped her face and whispered, "The twins are beautiful, Chris!" Chris managed to give an exhausted smile to her friend as Jack went to see their new daughter.

Davy swaddled the new baby and handed her to Jack. "Miss, perhaps we should give the little family a moment." Davy suggested, jerking his head towards the door once his work was done. He gathered his bag and instruments and Elizabeth smiled at Chris before she and the doctor left the room.

Jack joined Chris at the bedside once more, a baby in each arm. "Chris, meet our pair of twins." Jack was beaming as he handed her the already christened Jack the second. Chris saw now that his dark hair was her hair, and his dark eyes were those of his father.

"You're going to have the girls chasing after you." Chris said wearily. She couldn't believe it. Now she had not only a daughter that she loved dearly, but now she was mother to a baby girl and boy, a pair of twins.

"What do ye expect?" Jack asked. "He is a Sparrow." Loki chirruped in agreement from the headboard.

"How could I forget?" Chris asked. She looked up to the little girl, who also had the same color hair as she, but big blue eyes. She decided right then and there that both twins would be heartbreakers when they grew up. "What shall we name her?" She nodded at the little girl, who had found one of Jack's fingertips and was sucking on it.

"Whatever ye want, Chris, unless ye favor her being named after another ship." Jack grinned. "I've always fancied the name –"

Chris held up a hand, cutting him off. She looked back down to her son, and then back to her new daughter, who had big blue eyes and fair skin. The two traits reminded her of someone, someone who enabled Chris to be able to be married and have a family. "I want to name her Victoria." Chris said firmly.

Jack smiled. "Victoria. How about Victoria Maritza Charlotte, after our mums, and Jack Howard Teague, after our dads?"

"Can you never leave well enough alone?" Chris asked.

"Apparently not. Here," He handed his new daughter to his wife, "I need to go get Pearly." Jack left the room for a few moments before returning with not only Pearl (who was sitting astride his shoulders), but Lord Thomas and Norrington. Chris wondered where her uncles were as her father and brother entered.

"Do I have two new brothers or sisters?" Pearl asked with awe in her voice from her father's shoulders.

Jack picked Pearl from her perch and brought her to rest next to the bed. He whispered into her ear, "Yes Pearly darling. This is your brother Jack, and your sister Victoria. You're a big sister, now. Do you know what big sisters do?"

"What?" Pearl whispered.

"They take care of their little brothers and sisters and make sure no one hurts them. Can you do that, sweetie?"

"Yes, Daddy." Pearl breathed. "Can I touch them?"

"Crawl on up here with Mummy and ye can give them kisses." Jack said, lifting his daughter onto the bed. Loki joined Pearl with a jubilant shriek, and she giggled and gave the monkey a pat.

Norrington and Lord Thomas now approached, both looking rather shy. Norrington was the first to speak. "They're beautiful, Christiana."

"Who would have thought I would be a mother to three before you?" Chris replied, smiling weakly.

"Well, in all fairness, I never had planned to be a mother…" Norrington said. His joke caught Jack by surprise and he looked at the commodore with a mixture of awe and disbelief before bursting out laughing. The babies stirred at the volume of the laughter.

"Jack and Victoria?" Lord Thomas asked, stepping closer to the bed.

"Aye, Howie. Here," Jack gently lifted baby Jack from Chris' arms as Pearl kissed Victoria upon the head, "Say 'hello' to your namesake."

"Namesake?" Howard echoed.

"Aye. We're naming him Jack Howard Teague Sparrow, after all." Jack replied. Lord Thomas was speechless as he held the babe as though he was easily breakable.

"You couldn't have wedged a 'James' in there somewhere?" Norrington asked, smiling.

"Now you're pushing it, Norrington." Jack warned. "I'm thinkin' we could call him Jack-Jack, so he doesn't get mixed up with me, savvy?" Jack said, beaming at his twins.

A short while later, the family made their debut downstairs. Both Jack and Lord Thomas advised against Chris getting up and moving so shortly after giving birth to twins, but Chris wanted to feel what it was like once more to be able to move around without a large stomach impeding her. Chris walked down the stairs with Victoria in her arms and Loki on her shoulder, her father holding onto her elbow in case she was shaky or weak. Pearl was carried upon her Uncle Jamie's hip, and last came Jack, carrying his son in jubilation.

The crew of the _Black Pearl_ was present downstairs, devouring the leftovers of the Christmas Eve dinner and drinking a copious amount of rum. Seeing their captain, quartermaster, and their children, cheers rose up from the crew. The Turners and the governor were of course still present, and the children seemed to be very excited with the colorful characters around them.

"You had two of them, Chris?" Anamaria called. "I wish I could have seen how round you were this time!"

"With the way you and Athos are going, you'll soon know firsthand!" Gibbs replied. That received hearty laughter from all the pirates, and Anamaria's cheeks flushed with color.

Chris had noticed the absence of her uncles earlier, and now she saw them enter through the front door, each carrying something underneath their arms. She beckoned them over. "Where have you been?" She asked.

"Everyone needs gifts on Christmas, even if they were just born." Peter explained. Lord Thomas arched an eyebrow from his place at Chris' side.

"These are for your growing family." Allen added. From under his arm he extracted a bag and opened it to reveal gold coins with holes in the middle of them. Harry carried a bundle of incense, and Peter had an oddly shaped bottle of perfume.

"You do realize that this mirrors the gift the three wise men gave to the Savior?" Norrington asked his uncles.

Harry feigned a look of surprise. "Does it? I did not even zink of such a zing, James!"

"So that would make you three wise men?" Lord Thomas asked.

Allen shrugged. "You may call us whatever you wish."

"Incense?" Jack asked, elbowing his way forward. "I love incense; let's burn it!"

"Wait, Jack –" Peter warned, but Jack had already grabbed a few sticks and threw them onto the fire. As soon as they caught flame, they emanated a thick green smoke that smelled of dung.

"Oh, way to go captain!" Pintel coughed. Beside him, Cotton retched and his parrot fell from his shoulder.

"Everyone outside!" Athos demanded, flinging the door open. The occupants of the house streamed outside with the smoke, some wheezing and some gagging. Marty would have passed out and remained inside if it hadn't been for the quick thinking of Governor Swann to grab the diminutive man by the trousers and haul him outside.

It was a clear night, and more distinctly than anything else, one star burnt brightly in the sky. "Look, children, it's just like the star the three wise men –" Elizabeth began.

"Zat is to say, us." Harry interrupted.

Elizabeth ignored him. "—Followed to Bethlehem!"

As the pirates, Turners, and governor chattered about what could cause the star, Lord Thomas helped Chris to take a seat on the ground. Jack sat next to her, and Pearl planted herself between her two parents. Jack looked at his wife, the newborn daughter she held in her arms, Loki settled between Chris' legs, his eldest daughter, and his son. Even though he was pale and haggard, a look of peace and utter happiness slipped onto his face. He put his free arm around his daughter and wife before turning to them and wishing, "Merry Christmas, loves."

oOo

We three kings of Orient are;  
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,  
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,  
Following yonder star.

O star of wonder, star of light,  
Star with royal beauty bright,  
Westward leading, still proceeding,  
Guide us to thy perfect light.

Born a King on Bethlehem's plain  
Gold I bring to crown Him again,  
King forever, ceasing never,  
Over us all to reign.

O star of wonder, star of light,  
Star with royal beauty bright,  
Westward leading, still proceeding,  
Guide us to thy perfect light.

Frankincense to offer have I;  
Incense owns a Deity nigh;  
Prayer and praising, voices raising,  
Worshipping God on high.

O star of wonder, star of light,  
Star with royal beauty bright,  
Westward leading, still proceeding,  
Guide us to thy perfect light.

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume  
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;  
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,  
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

O star of wonder, star of light,  
Star with royal beauty bright,  
Westward leading, still proceeding,  
Guide us to thy perfect light.

Glorious now behold Him arise;  
King and God and sacrifice;  
Alleluia, Alleluia,  
Sounds through the earth and skies.

O star of wonder, star of light,  
Star with royal beauty bright,  
Westward leading, still proceeding,  
Guide us to thy perfect light.


	26. Pirate Brands !

**Chapter Twenty-Six  
Pirate Brands**

When spring came, the pirates of the _Black Pearl_ and the Sparrows bade farewell to Kingston and its inhabitants. Lord Thomas continued to keep his residence there until such a time as Norrington would return with him to England. Chris thought that Governor Swann was relieved to no longer have the charge of looking after a pregnant pirate, but it broke her heart to see Pearl say goodbye to the Turner boys, who had been her constant playmates. Ali was growing to be a young woman now, and though she did not play with Pearl as often as her little brothers did, Ali was still someone who Pearl had looked up to. When Ali and Pearl bade each other farewell, the older of the girl gave the smaller one a great big hug and Pearl fussed as she and her parents left the house.

Similarly, Chris was a bit more reluctant to leave Elizabeth, her uncles, and her father and brother more than she was willing to admit. She and Elizabeth had grown strong in their friendship over the previous months, and Chris appreciated having another woman around who knew how large a task it was to raise a child. And while Chris would never fully admit it, she had missed the feeling of having a father and a brother, and had missed seeing them every day over the years. Of course her familial joy was incomplete with the absence of her mother, but her encounter in the underworld was not forgotten, and Chris simply thought that her mother was away for the present, nothing more. And then there were her three slightly insane and definitely exciting uncles. With friends and family surrounding her for so many months, she hadn't thought what a hole their absence could leave in her when she left.

Her melancholy soon dissolved when the merchant ships of the Caribbean proved to be easy sport. The _Black Pearl_ attacked and plundered three fat merchantmen in their first month back at sea, and instead of selling the extra prizes at first, they were simply used to attack the following prizes and capture them. When the burden of the three extra ships started taxing the crew of the _Black Pearl_, they sailed into Port Freedom to sell the three extra ships. They had not been in the port since Jack had hauled Jocelyn from it against her will, but they found that little had changed.

"I'm going to go ahead and handle the selling of the prizes and cargo." Jack informed Chris as the anchors were lowered. "Ye can go ahead and take the kiddies to get the provisions squared away."

Chris arched an eyebrow at her husband. "Ye want me to take two infants and a toddler to go and get provisions in a pirate port?"

"Aye, I wouldn't want to rob ye." Jack replied, smiling.

"Very funny, Sparrow." Chris replied. "I'll figure something out."

Jack's smile widened. "See ye this evening then!" With that, the gangplank was lowered, and he departed into the port.

Having three small children on board was actually less taxing than Chris had thought, and it was mainly to the crew of the _Black Pearl_. For being pirates aboard one of the most feared ships in the Caribbean, the crew seemed to have a soft spot for children, especially Marty and Cotton. If one of the babes were crying, Cotton or Marty usually materialized and swept the babe from Chris' arms, quieting the crying child within minutes.

"Loki!" Chris whistled and the monkey dropped down from the rigging onto her shoulder. His lightened hair had not spread, but Chris did her best to make sure he got enough rest and was fed well. She had asked around in ports and learned that some monkeys like Loki could live forty years, if well taken care of. Chris did not know how old Loki was when she found him in the pirate ship, but she hoped it had not been a good deal of years. "Feel like going into port, mate?" She asked the monkey, scratching his head. He leaned into it and closed his eyes before Chris made her way to the captain's cabin.

The captain's cabin was scarcely clean anymore. Usually clean nappies, Pearl's clothes, and the small collection of toys were scattered all over the place, on top of rum bottles and Chris' papers. Sometimes a path would have to be plowed in between the door, the navigational table, and the bed, but Chris figured it could always be worse. Three hammocks had been strung up by Marty, each one a different color for the children, and as Chris entered, she saw that the twins were fast asleep in their hammocks, but Pearl was busy trying to swath Marty in some silk that they had obtained from one of the merchant's cargos. "Alright there, Marty?" Chris asked, smiling as she shoved a foot-full of clothing to the side.

Marty nodded. "Pearly's going to make me a maharajah, aren't you Pearly?"

Pearl laughed. "Yep! And then Uncle Marty's going to be the dragon and I'll be the butterfly!" One of the odd games that Pearl had invented was the dragon and butterfly game. Chris didn't know how it quite came about, but one day Pearl went up to her father and said, "Quick, you be the dragon, I'll be the butterfly! Go!" With that, she took off across the deck before Jack could fully comprehend what she had said. Sometimes Pearl was a princess, not a butterfly, but either way, she was always the one running.

"That sounds fun." Chris said earnestly. She looked at her sleeping infants and asked, "Marty, could I ask ye a favor?"

Marty removed a swath of silk from around his mouth. "O' course."

"I need to go get provisions –"

"I'll watch them." Marty said without waiting for her to finish. "I might just get Cot in on this too. Then the butterfly could be chased by two dragons." He grinned deviously at Pearl.

"Oh no!" Pearl exclaimed.

Chris laughed. "Thank ye, mate. I owe ye a watch."

"Don't worry about it, Chris. Go get our food so we won't starve." He turned back to Pearl as she continued to wind silk around him, and Chris exited the cabin after grabbing a pouch of coins, and made her way into Port Freedom

She walked past the Parrot's Eye, remembering the unpleasant experience she had previously had because of the tavern, and instead headed for the town merchant. When she entered, she found a tall blond woman behind the counter. "May I help you?" She asked, smiling.

"Aye, I need some provisions to be delivered to a ship in the harbor, and I can pay right now." Chris replied, setting the pouch on the counter.

"Of course." The woman pulled out a ledger and opened it to a fresh page. "What is the ship's name?" She asked, pulling out her quill and inkwell.

"The _Black Pearl_." Chris replied. She thought she saw the woman flinch, but it must have been her imagination, for the woman wrote the name down without another thought.

"Oh dear, it seems I'm out of ink." The woman said, peering into the inkwell. "You don't mind if I go in the back and get another bottle, do you?"

"By all means." Chris replied. The woman bobbed in a curtsy and sashayed into the back room. Chris spent the next few minutes drumming her fingers on the counter and wondering just how long it took to find a fresh inkwell. She heard the door to the shop open, and she turned to see who the next customer might be. Instead of another customer, she was greeted with the sight of four arm soldiers with an insignia reading "EITC" on their chests.

Chris' brow furrowed as they raised their muskets. Loki screeched, leaped, and streaked through the door just before it closed. East India Trading Company? In a pirate port? She raised her hands, for she was stupid enough to not bring her rapier and pistol with her _into a pirate port_ (_God, Chris, seriously?_ She thought), and she wondered for a minute whether the uniforms could have been pilfered and these four blokes were just putting her on. "Is there a problem?" Chris demanded.

"Shut it!" The lead soldier barked. "You are hereby under arrest by orders of the East India Trading Company for piracy!"

"What proof do you have?" Chris growled. She wasn't well known like her husband, something like this had never happened to her before.

"You're sailing with the _Black Pearl_, a vessel that was at one time belonging to the East India Trading Company and was taken by a pirate!" The leader sneered. Chris' blood ran cold. Would they go after the _Pearl_? If they did and they took her, what would happen to her children? "Now don't move an inch while we clap you in irons!"

Chris knew that she could not hope to win this fight. In the old days, before she was a mother, she would have fought tooth and nail, spewing out curses all the way. But she couldn't risk her dying like that, she couldn't risk Pearl and Jack-Jack and Victoria growing up without a mother (though if the EITC had their way, she would most likely be hung at dawn). "You've got me, I suppose." She said as calmly as she could. Inside, she was screaming.

The lead soldier had another man put the iron manacles about her wrists, and with that, they led her from the merchant and she saw no sign of Loki. She looked to the harbor and saw that the _Black Pearl_ no longer floated at the pier. Maybe Loki had made it back to the ship, and she was sure everyone knew something was wrong when Loki showed up and Chris was nowhere to be seen. That arose a hope in her that the _Pearl_ had been able to sail away free without being taken by the EITC, but then how was Chris going to get out of her current predicament? She could do her best alone, but some help would certainly not be frowned upon. The soldiers took Chris to a newly erected prison and threw her into a cell. "You will be standing trial this evening in preparation for your hanging tomorrow at dawn." The lead soldier informer her, removing her manacles through the bars.

"Looking forward to it!" She replied haughtily. The leader leered at her, turned on his heel, and marched from the prison. Chris turned to explore every inch of her cell. The floor was covered in dirty straw and filth, a bucket functioned as the privy, and there was no bench for her to sit on.

"Lovely accommodations, eh love?" A voice asked from the cell across from hers. She turned to saw Jack leisurely resting against the wall opposite the bars of his cell with his hands behind his head. "I asked for the king's cell. They said it was taken."

Chris leaned as far forward into her bars as they would allow, just so she could also be as close to her husband as possible. "Jack! They have you too? Damn!"

"Aye. Jumped me coming out of the shipwright's and took off with the money for the prizes, the greedy bastards." Jack's lips curled into a snarl, but he collected himself. "Where's Pearl? Are the kiddies alright?"

"Marty said he would look after them, so they stayed aboard." Chris explained. "And when they nabbed me at the merchant's, I saw that the _Pearl_ is no longer in the harbor. I think they smelled the East India Trading Company and left before they could be attacked."

"Nothing to do but wait here, I guess." Jack removed his hands from behind his head. "It's a sad day when the bastards that gave me this," He tapped his left forearm where his pirate brand sat, "can overrun a pirate port. Sad day."

Chris was quiet for a few minutes. "How exactly do ye wager we can get out of here?"

Jack tapped his chin before speaking. "Your 'trial,' if ye could call it that, will happen before the sun goes down and they'll plan to hang us in the morning. I'm lucky that they didn't just decide to hang me immediately since I already have me pirate brand. Anyway, I'm sure that when night falls, something very fortuitous will happen." Jack smiled, and he had the gleam that occurred in his eye whenever mischief on his part was afoot. That calmed Chris' agitated nerves.

A short time later, two soldiers appeared and came to a halt outside of Chris' cell. "We're here to escort you to your trial." One of them announced. "Please produce your wrists." Chris raised her hands and manacles were clamped onto them. Her cell was then unlocked, and she was pulled from the prison with one last look at Jack.

The soldiers led Chris from the prison and into an adjoining building and then into the room the trial would be held in. The trial room was stone and cold. It held four benches in a row and on a raised platform sat a table with a few chairs. There was a ring embedded into the floor before the platform, and the only other furnishing was a brazier full of glowing red coals. The soldiers led Chris to stand over the ring, and before they left her, they ran a chain through her manacles and then padlocked the chain to the ring. Chris stared straight ahead as she heard people file into the benches behind her, and all were ordered to stand when the East India Trading Company authority arrived.

The soldier standing at the door announced, "In the trial of piracy against Christiana Thomas, Lord Cutler Beckett is presiding." The door opened and a short man entered the room. His face was round and though he was young, he seemed to have a small amount of jowls. He wore a powdered white wig, and when he ascended the platform, a gentleman that had followed him in removed his cape. The man sat and took up a ledger sitting upon the table before checking his pocket watch. Cutler Beckett? Hadn't Chris heard that name somewhere before?

Cutler Beckett looked back to the ledger and spoke as he did so. "The trial has commenced, please make note of that Mr. Mercer, at 4:17 p.m." The man who had removed Beckett's cape was standing nearby and made a note in a ledger similar to the one his master looked in. Beckett's cold blue eyes focused on Chris. His eyes scrutinized every inch of her flesh, from her rough bare feet to her hair barely contained by the damask bandana. "Your name is Christiana Thomas, am I correct?"

"No." Chris replied with as much haughtiness as she could muster.

Beckett's eyebrows flew up and disappeared into his wig at this development. "No?" He repeated. "Pray tell, what is your name then?"

"My name has been Christiana Sparrow for some time." She replied.

His eyebrows reappeared and furrowed. "And how came you to be called by that name?"

"I am married to Captain Jack Sparrow of the _Black Pearl_. I was sure word had gotten around, though we didn't invite many to our wedding." There were a few chuckles from those sitting on the benches, but they were silenced with a look from Beckett.

"But your maiden name is Thomas, yes?" He asked, irritated.

"Quite true."

"Mr. Mercer, make note of the change in the defendant's name." Mercer scribbled in his ledger. Beckett took a deep breath, as if settling himself, and continued. "Your husband is the same Jack Sparrow that has also been detained, yes?"

"My husband is _Captain_ Jack Sparrow," Chris insisted, "Yes."

"Mr. Mercer, would you please have _Jack_ Sparrow join these proceedings?" Beckett smiled bitterly at Chris. "Fitly shackled, of course."

Mercer nodded and walked along the edge of the room to exit. Beckett ignored Chris for the period in between by writing in his ledger, which left the room in silence except for the occasional whisper between those in the benches behind Chris. When Mercer returned, he had a pistol to the back of Jack's head as he prodded him along. Jack's hands were shackled before him.

"Where shall I stand him, sir?" Mercer asked. "There is only one ring in the floor, and it is currently in use."

"Stand him to the right of the defendant and have a soldier put a bead on his head." Beckett commanded. Once Jack was in the designated position and a soldier had his musket trained on his head, Beckett continued.

"So I am to presume that you both live on the ship named the _Black Pearl_?" Beckett asked, looking up from his ledger.

Chris didn't know what the man was getting at. "Aye."

"And you are certainly aware that the _Black Pearl_ is a known pirate vessel, and the occupants are pirates." Beckett continued.

Chris realized what Beckett was going to get at, and the conclusion he would draw. If nothing else, she could attempt to be defiant. "It is a matter of opinion what makes a person a pirate."

"Let the record show that the defendant answered in the affirmative." Beckett said flatly.

"How?" Chris asked tersely.

"And so by a manner of association, has professed that she is a pirate. The defendant will be branded and hung on the morrow, case dismissed."

Those sitting in the benches behind Chris and Jack began to file out of the room, though two younger gentlemen leaned forward to ask Chris and Jack for their signatures. A soldier shooed them off, leaving only Chris, Jack, Beckett, Mercer, and less than a handful of soldiers in the room.

"So, Jack..." Beckett began, "How have you been faring?" His tone was almost casual as he descended from the raised platform, but malice glinted in his eyes.

"Better than ye by the looks of it, Cutty." Jack responded.

"'_Cutty'_?" Chris exclaimed, looking to her husband with an incredulous expression on her face.

"He used to be me best mate before he sold out to the East India Trading Company for a job. His price was me." Jack's eyes narrowed. "I think I mentioned him once in passing, to ye, but he's just a pissant little boy who isn't of much worth to remember, let alone speak of."

Beckett ignored the insult. "That I sold you is true enough. You were worth a lot to my reputation, Jack. It didn't do me well when you escaped."

"And it didn't do well for me when you tried to have me hung." Jack replied, shrugging.

Beckett clapped his hands together. "Well, first order of business. I'm sure you'll enjoy watching as your wife receives her pirate brand. That's why I asked for you to be here." A smile took place on Beckett's features, full of a sick kind of joy, the type Chris had seen on Black Bart's face that terrible time in the Tortugan caves. "I'm sure you remember the acuteness of the pain when you received your own brand." Mercer walked forward with a long velvet bag. From out of it, he drew a long poker with a reverse 'P' on the end and handed it to Beckett. "It has been so long since I personally branded a pirate, but this…" Beckett smiled, "This is a special occasion.

Jack waited until Beckett turned to the brazier and placed the poker into the coals to whisper, "It burns for a second, but it isn't so bad. Ye have some flesh on ye, so it won't hurt as bad as if you had bone right under yer skin." He smiled what he thought was an encouraging grin. "Just another decoration fer yer arm, 'ey love?" Jack asked, eyeing her already scarred arms.

"Actually," Beckett began, having overheard Jack's whispers, "We brand foreheads now. It's not as easy to hide."

"...Oh bugger." Jack muttered, looking lost for words.

Chris steeled herself as Beckett turned, whipping the poke from the coals. The reverse 'P' blazed a fierce red. Very few things alit fear inside of Chris, but as she looked upon the brand, the brand that had touched and scarred an innumerable amount of her pirate brethren and sisters before their death, fear began gnawing away in her stomach. She pulled on her chain, but it didn't allow her to escape. Beckett smiled. "I'm glad you're a fighter." He whispered.

He whipped the 'P' up to mere inches from her forehead, and Chris could feel the heat upon her skin. In that moment, she realized she could duck, and avoid the brand momentarily and perhaps in doing so, somehow do something to hinder Beckett. She bent her knees and bowed her head just as Beckett moved to brand her. It was only enough to take him by surprise, but he quickly adapted and whipped the brand down and planted the hot steel upon the flesh of the back of her neck.

Chris let out a scream as her spine went rigid with pain. There was a sizzling sound and the smell of burnt flesh. Somehow, through the noise though, gunshots were heard in the direction of the cells. Beckett pulled the brand from Chris' neck as she dropped to her knees, her mouth agape in pain. Jack looked as though he direly wanted to act, but the musket was still trained on him.

Beckett thrust the brand back into the brazier. "Just because you ducked doesn't mean you succeeded in unnerving me, Christiana." He hissed. "You'll simply receive a second brand, and I will hold it until the P is cool to the touch."

Chris looked up at him with hatred in her eyes just as the door was broken down. All in the room looked in shock as crew members of the _Black Pearl_ stormed in through the door, immediately slashing at the soldiers that remained. With this distraction, Jack ducked and rolled on the floor, causing his soldier to become stunned when he looked back and saw his target was no longer there. Pintel took advantage of his shock and tackled him to the ground. Jack took to chasing after Mercer, and when Jack finally caught up with him, he launched himself onto Mercer's back and set to strangling the man with the chains of his manacles. The two of them sank to the floor and Jack was the only one who rose up.

Chris then realized her legs were free even though her hands weren't. She ignored the pain on the back of her neck and swooped her leg around, knocking Beckett to the floor. She crawled forward as far as her chain permitted her and placed her kneecap upon his throat as he lay on the floor. He looked up at her with wide blue eyes as she whispered to him. "Now you tell your guards to back off or I will kneel down on your windpipe until you stop moving." Beckett's eyes widened, questioning her. She began to apply pressure. "Do it!"

"Throw down your weapons!" Beckett rasped to his soldiers. They stopped for a minute, one receiving a punch across the face. "Did I _stutter_?" They obeyed him and their weapons clattered to the floor.

Jack stepped forward and looked down at the man upon the floor. "Now tell them to unlock Chris and I, Cutty."

"Release them!" Beckett demanded. One of his soldiers walked forward after plucking the key ring from Mercer's body, and he unlocked the manacles around the couple's wrists.

As Chris rubbed her wrists and rotated her hands, she looked to the man beneath her knee. "Maybe we should take good ol' Cutty here along... as security." She looked up to her husband and grimaced as the burn on the back of her neck was pulled. Pain shot into her scalp and down her back.

"I love the way you think, love." Jack grinned. He turned to his first mate, who had led the charge into the room. "Gibbs, ye would happen to have any rope?"

Gibbs shook his head. "No sir."

Jack tapped his chin in thought before receiving what looked to be an epiphany. "Bandanas then, anyone?" Bandanas soaked in sweat, bandanas used for handkerchiefs, and bandanas used to bind old wounds were collected from the pirates and tied together to bind and gag Cutler Beckett. He grimaced and moaned in disgust as the gag, made of the filthiest bandana, was stuffed into his mouth. Once he was bound tightly, Cutler Beckett was carried from the place like a sack of sugar on the shoulders of Anamaria.

Surprisingly, they were met with no resistance or agents from the East India Trading Company as the crew of the _Black Pearl_ returned to their ship, hidden in a cove outside the town, with their bounty of Cutler Beckett. Once aboard the ship, the crew, with Jack in the lead, took pleasure in exacting vengeance upon the East India Trading Company lord and all the wrongs he had done to the pirates of the world. Chris plucked a gown from her trunk of disguises, and after the pirates relieved Beckett of "those awful clothes (as said by Jack)," the dress was pulled onto Beckett. Loki stole Beckett's wig and gave it to his mistress as the pirates took joy in applying cosmetics to Beckett. Chris brushed the wig straight and used it to teach Pearl how to braid hair. After Pearl's education was complete, Chris fed the twins and burped them both, using the wig as the burp rag. Only then was the wig placed atop Beckett's head once more Finally, as the pièce de résistance, a piece of canvas with 'landlubber' and 'scallywag' written on it was sealed to Beckett's forehead with hot tar, and he was bound tighter and set adrift in a jolly boat pointed towards Port Freedom before the _Black Pearl_ set sail. As one last bit of revenge, Jack figured that Beckett would embarrass himself even more than his dress would by crying for help when want of a privy and thirst set in.

oOo

You suck my blood like a leech  
You break the law and you breach  
Screw my brain till it hurts  
You've taken all my money – and you want more,

Misguided old mule  
With your pigheaded rules  
With your narrow-minded cronies who are fools of the first division

Death on two legs  
You're tearing me apart,  
Death on two legs  
You never had a heart of your own

Kill joy, Bad guy,  
Big talking small fry  
You're just an old barrow-boy  
Have you found a new toy to replace me,  
Can you face me  
But now you can kiss my ass goodbye

Feel good, are you satisfied  
Do you feel like suicide (I think you should)  
Is your conscience all right  
Does it plague you at night,  
Do you feel good – Feel good!

Talk like a big business tycoon,  
But you're just a hot-air balloon,  
So no one gives you a damn,  
You're just an overgrown school-boy  
Let me tan your hide.

A dog with disease  
You're the king of the 'sleaze'  
Put your money where your mouth is Mr. Know-all  
Was the fin on your back part of the deal... (shark!)

Death on two legs  
You're tearing me apart  
Death on two legs  
You never had a heart of your own,  
(You never did, right from the start)

Insane you should be put inside,  
You're a sewer-rat decaying in a cesspool of pride  
Should be made unemployed  
Then make yourself null and void,  
Make me feel good  
I feel good.


	27. Captain Jack Sparrow !

**Chapter Twenty-Seven  
Captain Jack Sparrow**

The _Black Pearl_ was out to sea again late in the summer. Pearl, Jack-Jack, and Victoria were left in Tortuga with their Grandpa Teague and Auntie Jocelyn and cousins. The last time Chris and Jack had docked in Tortuga, Teague was there, and very offended that they had not brought the twins to meet him. "You knew when Pearl was born!" Chris objected. "What happened to the sea turtles?"

"They've been actin' funny, lately. I think it's because I stopped sharing my rum with 'em." Teague replied. Chris looked at her husband and he just shook his head.

So the children were left with their grandpa, aunt, and cousins not only because Teague asked them to, but because the _Pearl_ was going after a shipment of gold from the new world bound for the coffers of a foreign king, and Jack feared things would get messy. All that mattered was that their children were safe and that they were going to secure the gold.

Days before the _Black Pearl _was due to intercept the shipment, Chris awoke one morning to find Jack's brown eyes looking back at her. "Good morning, love." He whispered, giving her a kiss.

Chris smiled into the kiss and placed a hand on each of Jack's cheek. When the kiss broke, she smiled up at him. "Morning." She whispered.

"I've been thinking…" Jack began. His fore and middle finger brushed her cheek, "And I've thought about this for… for years, really. And now that we have Pearl, Jack, and Vic, I really think… I think it's time for me to retire."

The statement caught Chris totally by surprise. "Wh-what? Jack, have you really, truly thought about what you're saying? What it means?" Chris asked, her mouth partly open in disbelief.

Jack nodded. "Aye Chris, I have. I know that it means an end to the legend of Captain Jack Sparrow. It means an end to the glory, the plunder…" His hands went to her shoulders and he squeezed them as he continued. "But think of this: we could live in one of those white adobe houses, the kind by the sea, and just _live_, Chris. We could anchor the _Pearl_, and whenever we want to go back to the sea, for a fancy, for travel, anything; we could." Jack had a smile tugging at his lips as he continued. "And not only that, but we could raise Pearl and Jack and Victoria, be part of their lives, and just – We could have everything we ever wanted, and be a family. We wouldn't need to worry about being chased, the kiddies getting hurt…" He kissed her and then leaned his forehead against hers. "What do ye say?"

Biting her lip, Chris thought of what he was saying. She could picture the home he spoke of in her mind as though she had been there before. She could see Jack lounging on a balcony overlooking the ocean, sipping from a glass of rum as the children played together, and Loki could live in palm trees overlooking the house. There would be no running from those who thought they were just and fair, no more stealing or planning, no more fighting for life. It would just be Chris and those she loved. "Jack, it sounds almost impossible." Chris whispered in his ear.

"Let's make it possible." Jack cupped her face in his hands. "Do ye want to?"

Chris grabbed his wrists and rubbed her thumbs against them. "Aye." She whispered.

Jack kissed Chris tenderly and brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. "Then that's what we'll do. As soon as that ship is ours, we're done. We'll divide the treasure and that'll be that." He grinned wide. "I cannot wait to just live with you, love."

The _Isabeau_ was a large galleon that one could see was heavy in the water even without a long glass. Jack eyed her greedily through his own long glass. "Alright men! Her waterline is ridiculously high she's so heavy. I want us to take her with no mercy! She's ours, she's waiting for us: let's not take too long, hmm?" The crew cheered and Chris beamed. Loki chirruped as the _Pearl_ swooped towards the French galleon without relent. The merchant sailors scurried on deck, shouting with panic as the _Pearl_ pulled up broadside and fired a spray of cannon balls into the ship's side for but a moment before swooping in front of the bow and assaulting the other side with cannon fire. Chris had honestly never seen Jack with such a look on his face as she did now. The greedy gleam in his eyes was almost manic. He expertly guided the _Pearl_ to the _Isabeau's_ already wounded side and peppered it once more with cannon fire. It was only good manners that those on the ship then raised their colors, inviting the pirates to board them.

"Our future, love." Jack said, hugging Chris with one arm, "Easier than convincing an inebriated Gibbs to try on a dress." He took the lead of the boarding party instead of Chris and sashayed across the plank that had been thrown across the gap between the two ships after grappling hooks had secured the two ships together. The merchant captain drew his sword and graciously offered it to the pirate captain.

"What was he talking about, Gibbs?" Chris asked, turning to the first mate.

"Nothing." Gibbs replied gruffly, turning a maroon color. Chris laughed and skipped across to the _Isabeau_ arm and arm with Pintel. The pirates were showed to the belly of the ship by the _Isabeau_'s captain. The hold was filled with unbelievable riches: Unrefined gold, gold coins, golden idols, golden necklaces, golden weapons, golden cutlery and plates, gold gold gold! It actually made Chris' eyes hurt when they brought it all out into the sun. As the chests were brought up, a stone chest caught Jack's eye. Chris noticed.

"Something wrong, captain?" She asked.

"What could be wrong when we have all this gold, my girl?" Jack asked, kissing her. He and his wife then joined their fellow pirates in transferring the wealth to their ship. Once it was all said and done, Jack, ever the gentleman, thanked the captain very much for the swag. "Here's something for your trouble." He flicked the merchant captain a silver coin, "There's a lot more where that came from." Chris was surprised the captain didn't tackle Jack and start beating him bloody for his cheek.

That night, Jack called for a special dinner. The stores of food were opened and the table from the galley was moved out underneath the stars. The golden cutlery and plates were used, and everyone was given an unlimited rum ration for the day, including Loki. It was the merriest dinner Chris had ever had, though she missed Pearl, Jack-Jack and Victoria. After bellies were filled and whistles wetted with rum, Jack rose to his feet (weaving a little bit as he did).

"Gents! Oi, gents!" He tapped a gold knife against his bottle of rum to bring the table to attention. When that didn't work, Jack employed Loki to jump in the middle of the table and shriek. That did call the pirate's attentions to their captain. "My good lads." Jack begin, slurring a little bit. Chris and Anamaria cleared their throats. Jack looked at them. "And ladies. Is this not the richest plunder we've ever had?"

"Aye!" Resounded around the table. Loki shrieked.

"I thought so meself!" The captain grinned. "And because of this... I would like to announce that I plan to retire from pirating when next we make berth."

Anamaria dropped her forkful of food that had been heading to her mouth. Cotton's Parrot fell from his shoulder. Gibbs' flask suddenly popped out from between his fingers. Marty fell from his chair. Pintel dropped his mug of rum and it spilled all over the table. Athos had been fixing his wooden leg and it clattered to the deck. The pirates fell silent, and all stared at their captain in blatant disbelief.

"Tis true, lads. I plan to divide the treasure among you all, giving each of you a nice bonus, and let ye go yer separate ways. I do say this with a little regret, but I know that we'll all live richly the rest of our lives... if we don't squander it on the ladies, eh?" He elbowed Athos in a friendly way. "And I'd like to say that I've been the luckiest captain on the seven seas to have such a loyal and hardworking crew, and for this, mates, I give you a toast." He raised his bottle of rum and drank from it before returning to his seat. Jack looked to Chris, taking her hand and squeezing it.

The table was silent for a few seconds. Gibbs then rose to his feet and picked up his flask, opening it. "To Captain Jack Sparrow!" He toasted.

Everyone save Jack rose, even Loki. "To Captain Jack Sparrow." They repeated, and drank from their respective beverages.

The voyage back to Tortuga was one of unhurried luxury. If a ship was spotted on the horizon and it was identified as a merchant ship, they let it go. If it was Navy, the _Pearl_ lazily swooped in the opposite direction. Everyone on board ate well from the stores, and they enjoyed limitless amounts of rum, especially Jack. Chris was at the helm one day with Loki when Athos approached her.

"I need to ask some advice from Jack..." Athos said a bit sheepishly. "But I can't find him. Do ye know where he is?"

"We'll look together. Marty, will ye mind the wheel?" Chris asked.

"'Course!" Marty responded before hiccupping. He laughed and took another sip from his rum bottle.

"...I won't be gone long." Chris assured the carpenter before leaving the wheel in his slightly inebriated hands.

Chris walked down the stairs leading from the bridge and went to the door of the captain's cabin, Athos following. She heard singing from inside, drunken singing. "Found him." She opened the door and poked her head inside, and Loki looked as well. At the sight she held before her eyes, Loki shrieked and lit off from her shoulder and into the rigging.

Captain Jack Sparrow, terror of the Caribbean, sacker of Nassau without firing a single shot, and once an undead skeleton (if only for thirty or so minutes) was sitting in a wash tub filled with gold coins, and he was quite naked. He was slurring some old sea ballad while swinging his bottle of rum around, splattering it on things like the succubus' horn, the drawing Ali Turner did for him so long ago, and so on. He noticed Chris' head poking in and asked, "Care to join me love?" He asked with a devilish smile.

Chris pulled her head out of the door and closed it, turning to Athos, making sure that she barred the way in. "He's... preoccupied." She squeaked. "Ask him later."

"I'm sure he won't mind –" Athos began, trying to wedge himself between Chris and the door.

"No! No no no no noooo, he _will_ mind." Chris insisted. She took hold of the back of his neck and led him away. "Why don't you go and see Anamaria? Yes, yes, that's a good lad." She shoved him in the other direction before returning to the door and pressing her ear against it.

"..._We're devils, we're blackguards, and really bad eggs, drink up me hearties yo-ho_!" She heard Jack wail from within. Smiling, she slipped inside to join him.

A few days later, they were rounding the coast of Jamaica. The whole crew was in a state of half sobriety when **It** happened. From nowhere, the _Titan_ lurched out from a hidden cove and immediately headed for the _Black Pearl_, as if meaning to collide with it. This caught everyone by surprise, from Athos in the crow's nest to Jack at the helm. Chris had been in the rigging with Loki, and she was so surprised she almost fell to the deck.

"All hands to arms!" Jack bellowed, ringing the bell furiously. "Make fast the cannon, prepare for possible boarding!" Jack turned to Chris, who had climbed down to join him at his side. "Why does that damn Chesed have to ruin everything?" He muttered, straightening his hat. Chris simply shrugged. She knew that all of the pirates had been rather slothful and free with their drinking in the past few days, and she could only pray that the _Black Pearl_ and her crew could survive this encounter relatively unscathed.

Just when it looked like the _Titan_ would collide with the _Pearl_, she dropped anchor and whipped broadside, immediately spraying the _Pearl_ with cannon balls. Chris barely dodged one that whizzed right where her head had been and instead obliterated the bulkhead behind her.

"Marty won't be happy with that." She said to Loki, who cocked his head to the side. She turned on her heel, dodging a few more cannon balls as she pulled the chest of boarding weapons from its storage. She pulled from the chest a musket, musket balls, wad, and powder and shoved a knife into her waistband before heading into the rigging. She climbed aloft and laid prostrate on a yardarm (Loki still on her shoulder), praying she wouldn't fall off, and she began picking off people on the _Titan's_ deck one by one, much like she had on her first encounter with the _Titan_. It was then that **He** emerged from his cabin.

Mathias Chesed had not changed at all in the few years since Chris first saw him. His ice-blue eyes still carried hatred within them, and now they seemed to be burning with blue flames as he looked upon the _Black_ _Pearl_. Chris moved her musket so that Chesed was in her sights, cocked the hammer, and her finger was on the trigger when a cannon ball connected with the base of the mast the yardarm happened to be a part of. The mast splintered upwards, knocking Chris off the beam. Her rifle fell from her hands as she plummeted through the air. Loki clutched her shirt and shrieked as Chris drew her knife, and out of sheer luck, plunged it into one of the sails. It slowed her speed, especially when the blade hit the battens, and she was able to land on a different beam and climb down the rigging to the deck.

"Alright there, Loki?" Chris asked the monkey on her shoulder. He shook violently before screeching, as if to say 'To Hell with this!' and streaked off into the forecastle. It was then that grappling hooks were thrown across not by the _Pearl_, but the _Titan_. Chris would be damned if she let the Navy sailors board the _Black Pearl_ first. She had landed near the chest, and she pulled her rapier from her scabbard. She grabbed a line and bellowed, just as planks were thrown across, "Long live piracy!" With that, she swung across the gap between the two ships and landed with a thump. The first sailor she saw was run through, and the next received a blow to the cheek before being stabbed in the heart.

In minutes, both decks of the two ships were swarming with sailors in blue and pirates in their regular sailing gear. Chris received a cut to her right shoulder in the same place where she had received her first wound so many years ago. The officer that gave it to her soon received a slash to his throat and collapsed in a pool of his own blood. Out of the corner of her eye, Chris saw Athos emerge from the belly of the _Titan_. "What in the _Hell_ were you doing down there?" Chris asked the wooden-legged man.

"Following Jack's orders!" Athos replied, skewering a sailor who attempted to take advantage of their conversation. "Call for a retreat to the _Pearl, _**now**!"

Chris didn't know what was going on, but if Athos had been following Jack's orders, she needed to do what he said. "Pirates! Retreat to the _Pearl_! Go, go, go!" Chris screamed. She parried a strike from a ship's boy and kicked the youth away from her. He skidded across the deck and the pirates streamed back onto the _Pearl_ and worked at driving the Navy invaders off of their ship.

There was the sound of ropes breaking, and Chris looked to see Jack cutting the grappling hooks from the _Titan_ while still aboard the ship. The wife looked to her husband, questioning what he was doing and he yelled, "Go! Just go! I'll be there soon!" before continuing hacking at the ropes.

"You heard him, girl!" Gibbs yelled, jumping to the helm as the last of the Navy sailors were mobbed up by the pirates. "Make sail!"

"Gibbs, what –?" Chris started to ask, but an explosion from the belly of the _Titan_ drew her attention back to the massive Naval ship. The gun ports exploded outward in flame, and the middle of the deck burst outward. Sailors went flying into the air, and the _Titan_ began to take on water rapidly. It was then that Chris saw that Chesed was still very much alive, and he was approaching Jack, who cut the last of the grappling hooks. "Jack, behind you!" Chris screamed.

Jack turned back in time to parry a blow given by Chesed. Chesed bent Jack backwards over the railing and spat in the pirate captain's face. Chris wanted nothing more than to swing across to the _Titan_'s deck and cut Chesed into pieces, but a few of the Navy sailors still survived aboard the _Pearl_, and she had them to worry about.

There were even more explosion from the Titan's hold, and they resulted in the _Titan_ severing in two. Jack almost fell into the fiery gap that formed between the two pieces of ship, but by grabbing some rigging and swinging around Chesed, he landed on the bit of stairs leading to the bridge, running through a sailor as he did. He climbed to the wheel and turned to look upon his adversary.

Chris ran through the last of the Naval sailors and threw him overboard just as Marty cried, "Look!" Chris turned to see her husband Captain Jack Sparrow at the helm of the _Titan_, his sword drawn, as Chesed ascending the stairs, his sword also at the ready. They seemed to be talking, but with the sound of the sinking ship, the cries of those in the water, and the sound of pirates trying to detach the broken mast from the _Pearl_, Chris heard nothing.

The mast was freed and sank into the sea, and all the pirates turned to watch as the British Navy admiral and pirate captain began fighting. Chesed slashed at Jack, and Jack parried. There were more slashes, and more parrying as the two of them circled around the wheel and the stern began sinking into the water at an accelerated rate. Jack succeeded in stabbing Chesed in the thigh once, at which point Chris let out a strangled, "Yes!" Her heart was in her throat, she could feel the bile rising, and her legs were trembling. She kept thinking to herself, "Jack, just kill him and get it over with!" The entire crew watched with baited breath, and Loki pressed the side of his face against Chris'.

Jack parried a final blow, but as he did, Chesed's sword whipped up and plunged into the pirate's stomach. A collective gasp issued from every pirate aboard the _Black Pearl_. Chesed leaned close, apparently saying something in Jack's ear, before wrenching his sword and pulling it out of Jack's stomach. Jack fell to his knees, a stunned expression on his face. Chesed walked away, seeing that some of his men had made it to a jolly boat. Chesed leaped from the sinking stern into the jolly boat without a second look to the man he had just ran through. The pirate captain touched his wound, and when Jack raised his hand to his face, he beheld a blood covered hand.

"JACK! _JACK_!" Chris screamed, running to the bulkhead and leaning over it, towards the burning wreck upon which her husband stood. Her heart had burst, she felt like she was caught in a horrible dream, and she just wanted to wake up. "Jack, Jack, JACK!" She screamed as Gibbs' arms wrapped around her, pulling her back. "God no, _please_ _no_! JACK!" The Titan's bow had already sunk, and the stern was following quickly. Jack leaned against the wheel, one hand clutching the bloody hole in his stomach. He grabbed one of the knobs with his free hand and tried to pull himself up, failing. Instead, Captain Jack Sparrow fixed his gaze upon his ship, and more specifically, his wife. He mouthed, "Love," before crookedly saluting his crew. Water washed over the bridge of the stern, and Jack fell into it face first. Captain Jack Sparrow was dead.

"Jack! No, no, no!" Chris screamed and sobbed, Gibbs trying to do anything to comfort her, though there were tears in his eyes. All except Chris were silent as the stern section of the _Titan_ disappeared into the water, leaving only flaming bits of wreckage on the surface. The jolly boat containing Chesed rowed away as fast as it could as Chris continued to scream Jack's name until her voice died. He was gone, he was dead! No, no, no, this couldn't be happening! It wasn't supposed to happen like this, it couldn't be ending like this!

"Get down to the guns!" Chris suddenly screamed. "Get to the cannon; blow that bastard and the rest of his sailors to pieces!" Chris demanded, pointing at the jolly boat that was still sailing away. "I want to kill that man; I want to feel his guts in my hands –!"

"Chris, they're out of range." Gibbs said, holding the quartermaster by the shoulders.

"Then let's go after them, let's –!"

"The mizzen-mast is gone." Anamaria said gravely. "We don't have our former speed…"

Chris looked at the crew, the people who had been her family before she and Jack created one of our very own. "I can't – We…" And with that, Chris collapsed in Gibbs' arms into a huddled mass of weeping flesh and tears. Loki carefully climbed up onto Gibbs' shoulder and peered down at his mistress, silent.

After a moment or two, Pintel asked, "What are the orders, Captain Gibbs?"

Gibbs flinched, and his eyes were sad. "See what we can do about the mizzen-mast." He said quietly. "And don't call me 'captain.' Lord knows there has ever been but one captain destined for this ship." Gibbs looked at the bodies of sailors that littered the _Pearl_'s deck. "Toss the sailors that aren't ours overboard. Prepare our men for a sea burial."

The jolly boat eventually disappeared on the horizon as the pirates of the _Black Pearl_ did what they could for the poor salts that died in the battle, and Marty and Anamaria set about to see what they could do to accommodate the sails lost with the mizzen-mast. Gibbs sat Chris upon the bottom of the left set of stairs leading up to the bridge and asked her to stay there and he tended to the ship. She found it easy enough to comply.

Chris felt as though nothing she would ever do would matter anymore. Captain Jack Sparrow, her captain, her friend, her husband, and the father of her children was dead. What could she do now? How could she live? How could her children grow up without a father? She leaned against the wooden railing of the stairs and kept her eyes focused blankly on the wooden deck, even when the call that a ship was on the horizon came up. _If they're Navy, let them come. It doesn't matter anymore…_

As the ship grew closer, the pirates saw that it was an old friend. The _Tout de Suite_ sped towards the _Pearl_ with grace and ease and pulled up along her broadside within minutes. "It looks like you have some trouble zere, my friends!" Giles de Fayette grabbed a line and pulled himself up onto the bulkhead. "You seem to be missing a mizzen-mast!"

Marak was at the helm, and he surveyed the quiet crew of the _Black Pearl_ from that vantage. The anchor was lowered and the captain of the _Tout de Suite_ surveyed the somber faces of the silent crew.

"Were you attacked?" Giles asked, breaking the silence. His formerly cheerful face fell when he still received no answer.

"It is but a repair, friends." Marak said, descending from the wheel. "We'll help you get it fixed and you'll be on your way."

"This isn't about the ship, Marak." Gibbs finally spoke. "After all, ships can be replaced. Men cannot."

"What do you mean?" Marak asked, his expression puzzled.

Giles was quicker. His eyes quickly sought out the captain of the _Black Pearl_, but were not rewarded with the sight. His eyes did, however, fall upon Chris, still leaned up against the railing of the stairs, her eyes puffy and streaming. "Jacques?" He asked hopefully, his eyes meeting Chris' own. Her lips pressed together in a frown and she sobbed.

"Chesed attacked us." Gibbs said quietly. "Jack hung back to make sure that the _Titan_ would sink from the powders kegs we lit in her belly." Gibbs released a heavy sigh. "Chesed fought with him and he won."

"Where is Chesed now?" Marak asked.

"Gone in a jolly boat." Anamaria replied. "He quickly left our range, and with our mizzen-mast gone… They slipped away."

During this exchange, Chris curled her fingers around one of the raisers of the banister of the stairs and leaned her forehead against them. Tears streamed down her cheeks and left spots on the deck and the stairs. "Oh, _mon dieu_." Giles grabbed a line hanging from the top of the _Tout de Suite_ and swung over to land on the deck of the _Black Pearl_. "Zis is outrageous! We must find him, we must make him pay, we must –" At that moment, his eyes fell upon the weeping widow of Captain Jack Sparrow, and his raving silenced. "Marak." He turned to his first mate. "We must make sure ze _Black Pearl_ is repaired. Send our carpenter over so that he can assist Monsieur Marty."

Gibbs looked to Chris and then back to Giles. "Thank you, Captain de Fayette." He looked at the crew and said, "Come on, mates. We have a mizzen-mast to replace."

Chris did not sleep in the captain's cabin that night. Instead, she went down to her old cabin as soon as the new mizzen mast was erected, courtesy of a quick venture to a nearby island for a tree tall enough. After it was erected, the _Black Pearl_ and the _Tout de Suite_ set course for Kingston, for they could only think that if Chesed had been rescued, Kingston would be the port he headed for.

In that entire time, Chris had not spoken, she had not eaten, and she had not drunk. She could not begin to think that she would never see Jack again. It seemed impossible and so, so very cruel. What was she going to say to Pearl, or to Jack-Jack or Victoria, who would only have fleeting memories (if any), of their father? She didn't know; she didn't want to know. Chris simply lay in the bed that was once hers and stared at the timbers above her head until her eyes closed, if only for a moment.

The sound of footsteps in the companionway sounded after midnight. The door swung open and a figure entered the room. Wet footprints were left in their wake, for their boots were leaking water. The person kneeled beside the bed and moved the hair out of Chris' sleeping face. "Love," the person whispered, "Love, wake up."

Chris' eyes opened and she immediately recognized Jack's face in the dim light. Her hands reached up to touch his face, to run her hands down his neck and shoulders. "Jack!" She threw her arms around him and pulled him to her, pressing her cheek against his. "Oh Jack, you're alive!" She pulled away and kissed him several times before burying her face in his chest. "You're alive, you're alive, you're alive!" She wept. Relief swept through her: her future was bright again; she wouldn't need to explain to Pearl and Jack-Jack and Victoria that their father was gone.

"Love, love look at me." Jack gently reach down and raised her chin up so she could look in his eyes. He smiled tenderly at her and said, "I'm not. This is a dream. The higher powers that be told me this is the only way I could talk to you."

"No, no no no!" Chris whispered, lowering her face back to his chest. Her fingers clutched at the damp fabric of his shirt. "Why? Why would you do this to me again? Jack, I can't live with this pain, I need you to be here, I need this to be real!" He felt real, this all felt real. Why couldn't it be?

Jack cradled her face in his hands. "I know love. I know you want to wake up and have me wake up beside you. It's not possible… Or probable anyway." Chris' face contorted into a mask of agony and fresh tears began to spill from her lids. Jack wiped the tears with his thumbs "What is this, my brave girl crying? My brave girl who bested the underworld, escaped a powerful pirate lord and his ship full of pirates, and saved me from a succubus?" He smiled and kissed her. "Now stop that. Please, pay attention because I have some very important things to tell you."

Chris inhaled deeply, struggling to keep her emotions in check. _Stop acting like such a damn woman…_ She sniffled and looked into her husband's face. "I'm listening."

"Good. One: I want Jack-Jack to have me hat." He took the tricorn from his head, a small amount of water slopping over the side of the brim, and placed it on the floor next to the bed. "He'll be a great captain one day, and they won't make hats like they used to.

"Two: Give Vic me coat. She'll be exploring some cold places when she gets older; I want to make sure that she's warm." He took off his coat, folded it, and placed it under his hat. Chris vaguely wondered if the 'powers that be' had told Jack the destinies of their children.

"And Three: Give Pearl my ring." He pulled off the emerald skull-ring from his finger and sat it in the brim of his hat. "And don't you let her forget about me. Her stories will be the only things that Jack and Victoria will remember about their father, beside what you'll have. I don't want them to forget they had a father that loved them."

"Why did you come?" Chris asked, her voice a mere whisper. "Why did you have to make this harder than it already is?" Even though she didn't want to act like a damn woman, tears continued to spill.

"I knew you would be scared, Chris. I wanted you to… I wanted you to know I'd be alright. I didn't want you to be afraid." Jack smiled sadly. "And I wanted to make sure that you'd have our children growing up to know me as a good man, as the man you knew – not what any others might say I am."

"How could I let them think any different?" Chris replied, sniffing. "You are a good man, Jack Sparrow."

The man sighed and cupped Chris' face in his hands once more. "And for you, Chris." He exhaled deeply. "Just… Just know that there wasn't a day that didn't pass since I met you that I didn't love you in some way." He leaned forward and it seemed he kissed her lips just as Chris woke up.

Daylight streamed in through her porthole, and her old cabin seemed barren and empty. Chris heaved a sigh and covered her face with her hands, letting out a miserable sob. Not only for the dream, the dream that had seemed so real, but because this was the first time that she had ever woken up and knew that Jack was not greeting the day somewhere else. Her chest shook with sobs and she wiped away tears. A questioning chirp caught her attention, and she looked to see that her door had been left ajar and Loki was peeking in through it. She hadn't seen him since the previous day, and now as she looked upon her monkey… She took a little solace in knowing that at least she had him.

Chris sat up and swung her legs out of bed, and she felt her bare feet hit something. She looked down and saw that Jack's coat, hat, and his ring right rested beside the bed, right where Jack had placed him in her dream. She slipped to the floor, gathering up the few articles of Jack's famed 'effects' that had not been claimed by the sea. She inspected them and, yes they were his. How? How could this have happened?

Loki chattered and loped over to Chris cautiously. The woman looked up from the clothing to her furry companion and sighed. "Come on, Loki." She whispered, patting her shoulder. The monkey climbed the front of her shirt and rested upon her shoulder, curling his tail protectively around her neck. With that, Chris stood, gathered up Jack's effects, and headed above.

oOo

I dreamed I was missing  
You were so scared  
But no one would listen  
Cause no one else cared

After my dreaming  
I woke with this fear  
What am I leaving  
When I'm done here

So if you're asking me  
I want you to know

When my time comes  
Forget the wrong that I've done  
Help me leave behind some  
Reasons to be missed

And don't resent me  
And when you're feeling empty  
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest  
Leave out all the rest  
Don't be afraid  
I've taken my beating  
I've shed but I made

I'm strong on the surface  
Not all the way through  
I've never been perfect  
But neither have you

So if you're asking me  
I want you to know

When my time comes  
Forget the wrong that I've done  
Help me leave behind some  
Reasons to be missed

Don't resent me  
And when you're feeling empty  
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest  
Leave out all the rest

Forgetting  
All the hurt inside  
You've learned to hide so well

Pretending  
Someone else can come and save me from myself  
I can't be who you are

When my time comes  
Forget the wrong that I've done  
Help me leave behind some  
Reasons to be missed

Don't resent me  
And when you're feeling empty  
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest  
Leave out all the rest

Forgetting  
All the hurt inside  
You've learned to hide so well

Pretending  
Someone else can come and save me from myself  
I can't be who you are  
I can't be who you are


	28. Things to Come !

**Chapter Twenty-Eight  
Things to Come**

Giles had enough forged legal documents to go around, and the _Tout de Suite_ and _Black Pearl_ sailed into Kingston under false colors and false names two days after Jack's death. The pardons that had been written up for the pirates of the _Black Pearl_ did not apply to the sailors of the _Tout de Suite_, and some might argue that the pardons were invalid since the bearers of them were still actively engaging in piracy. Docking fees were paid and Gibbs sent Marty and Cotton into the port to find someone to repair the mizzen-mast for good. Once they had set off, Chris, Loki, Gibbs, Anamaria, Athos, Pintel, Giles, and Marak disembarked from the _Black Pearl_ and inquired as to whether or not Admiral Chesed had been seen in port, or whether any news had come about his whereabouts. The answer was always negative.

"I'm going to go see the Turners." Chris said as the last dockhand they interrogated departed. "They need to know."

"Shouldn't we speak to Norrington first?" Gibbs queried. "He'd know more about what Chesed might be doing."

Chris pressed her lips together in a line. "I – I just need them to know, Gibbs. They're our friends, I need…" Chris fell silent and fought back tears.

"Alright there, Chris. Alright." Gibbs said, patting her on the shoulder. "Who do you want to come with ye?"

"I want to go alone, mate. I think it will make things worse if half a dozen people come tramping in with me."

"We'll make sure that the mizzen-mast repair is going along smoothly so we can get back to Tortuga as soon as possible." Gibbs said. "You go tell them, and we'll see you back at the _Pearl_."

"See you then, mates." Chris said, managing a weak smile. Loki cooed morosely, and Chris broke away from the pirates, heading to the home of the Turners. In the previous days, Chris had felt like she had become numb to the world. She hadn't eaten. She drank only a little. Her hair was more of a snarled mess than usual, and her skin had become pallid. Dark circles had formed under her eyes from the lack of sleep she had at night for sometimes Jack came to her in her dreams, and she couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand to find no reprieve in her dreams from the absence of her husband. Even though seeing Jack again was wonderful, it only further reminded Chris of what she lost.

Chris walked up to the front door and could hear the sound of the boys playing inside and Ali telling them to be careful. She inhaled deeply before rapping on the door three times. Bootstrap answered, Liam carried in one arm like a sack of potatoes. Upon seeing the quartermaster, the grandfather set his grandson down and gave him a swat on the rump to go play. "Oh Chris girl!" The older man reached forward to give Chris a hug in greeting. When he realized she wasn't enthusiastic in returning it, he pulled away and looked at Chris hard. It was then that he noticed that Chris and Loki were present, but that someone else was not. "Where's your other half?" He questioned cautiously.

"I need to talk to you and Will and Elizabeth." Chris stated, inhaling deeply. "It's... It's bad."

Bootstrap's eyes clouded, for he knew something was indeed wrong. "It is." He stated. "Come in." Chris entered and found that Tobias and Liam (having escaped his grandfather's grasp) seemed to be engaging in a wrestling match, with Noah watching. Ali was holding a broom and trying to pry her brothers apart with the handle. "Boys, if you do not stop right now, so help me God –!" Bootstrap warned, but at his brass tones, the boys stopped and immediately peeled themselves from the other. They stood at attention and Ali leaned on her broom. "All of you go to your rooms. Alice, sweet, will you send your mother and father down?"

Ali looked from her grandfather to the woman, seeing the woman's pallid complexion and dull face. "Where's Uncle Jack?" She asked, a slight tremor of fear in her voice.

Bootstrap swallowed and put a hand on her shoulder, urging her to obey his words. "Go get your parents. There's a good girl." The boys and their sister filed up the stairs and Loki watched them go with a chirp. Bootstrap turned back to his friend. "They'll be down shortly."

Chris nodded and turned to look out the window, seeing the disguised _Black Pearl_ and _Tout de Suite_ bobbing in the harbor. As she looked upon the ships, it felt like something had snapped in her chest. She remembered standing at this very window so many times when she was pregnant with Jack-Jack and Victoria, wishing that the _Black Pearl_ was indeed in the harbor. Chris sighed. How was she going to tell the Turners like this? The bigger task of telling the children loomed ahead. How could she explain? And, furthermore, how could she tell them the man that took their father away was still out there, unpunished?

"Chris?" The quartermaster was pulled from her reverie by Elizabeth's voice. She turned to find Elizabeth and Will at the foot of the stairs, and Bootstrap watching with folded arms.

Chris looked at her friends, and she knew she just had to say it. She knew she couldn't sugar-coat anything. Nothing would make what she was about to say easy. "Jack's dead." Her voice broke as soon as she said her husband's name. _Damn it_. "Chesed killed him."

Elizabeth raised a hand to her mouth, Bootstrap's arms fell to his side in shock, and Will just stared at the floor. A short silence existed, but was broken when Will crossed the room and braced himself against a table with books upon it. He then let out a roar as he swiped all of the books from the table and overturned it. The crash seemed a deafening way to break the silence, and Loki's back arched at the noise. Will's eyes met Chris'. "This isn't fair. This is **NOT FAIR**. I'm going to kill Chesed. I am going to _rip him apart with my bare hands_ –!"

"Will!" Elizabeth exclaimed, her voice thick with grief. She went to cross the room to her husband, but Bootstrap held her back.

"No, no, no! That man, if you could call Chesed a man – He is despicable! He is the lowliest form of life on the planet! He killed a good man, a great man – A man who was our friend, Elizabeth! Our friend! Captain Jack Sparrow may have been a pirate, but he was a damn good man!"

"He was one of the best, Will." Bootstrap spoke up, releasing his hold on his daughter-in-law. "Now is a time to mourn, there will be time for action later –"

Will cut his father off, turning to the female pirate. "Chris, if you go after Chesed, I am coming with you. He left you a widow, your children fatherless –"

"Will." Chris stopped him with his name. She hadn't planned anything yet as to avenging Jack's death, or to punish Chesed, but as she spoke now, she meant to follow through with her words. "If anyone's punishing Chesed, it will be me. And I'll go alone." She looked at Will's wife and his father. "You have a family that depends on you, Will. I can't risk you or anyone else dying."

Will walked to Chris and stood before her, his arms open in supplication. "If nothing else, Jack was my friend. _Our_ friend. I can't just let this go without doing something to help you."

Chris was silent for a moment before saying, "If I think of anything, I'll let you know."

After a few more words, Chris excused herself to return to the _Pearl_, despite protestations from each of the Turners. She promised that before the crew of the _Black Pearl_ returned to Tortuga, she would come see the Turners. With that, she left their home, feeling more weighted down than when she arrived. Chris wondered how Ali would react to the news of Jack's death. A sad smile slipped onto her lips as she thought back to the time when she and Jack snuck into Port Royale for Liam's christening and Ali tackled the pirate captain. A lump formed in her throat, and she tried hard to swallow it as she made her way back to the docks.

"Chris." Davy called when the quartermaster boarded the _Black Pearl_. He had been rather scarce since Jack's death, partly because he used to be a Royal Navy doctor and he didn't want any hatred for Chesed and the Navy reflected onto him. "Someone is waiting in the captain's cabin for you."

A vague question of who could be waiting fluttered through her mind, but she didn't much care. She was so tired, she felt so numb. She just wanted to get back to her children and try to put her life back together at the moment. Chris looked to the mizzen-mast. The one that had been rigged up temporarily was gone and the new, permanent one was just being lowered into place. "Do you know how long until we're supposed to be sailing?" She asked the doctor.

Davy shrugged. "I think I heard Gibbs say something about midday tomorrow, I'm not sure."

Chris patted the doctor on the shoulder once. "You're a good man, Davy. Good man." With that, she and Loki entered the captain's cabin.

Norrington was waiting inside, his hands behind his back in parade rest. When his sister entered, however, all posture was dropped and he crossed to her, immediately enveloping her in a hug that took her by surprise. "What's happened?" Norrington asked, pulling away from Chris. "When Gillette told me a ship fitting the description of the _Black Pearl_, but under a different name and with white sails had docked, I knew it was you, and I knew there'd be trouble for you to dock here. I tried to find Jack but… What's wrong?" Loki leaped from Chris' shoulders and into the bed, burrowing into the sheets.

Chris had paled at Norrington's overwhelming show of affection from her brother. It was shocking while she was so physically and emotionally weak. "You don't know… Why would you think something was wrong?" She asked.

"Jack's father showed up three days ago with the children and Jack's sister, and her children, and the pirate with the wooden eye and his family." Norrington explained. "Teague – I think that's his name – Found your father's house and said something had happened. Your father called for me because he wasn't quite certain what the man was going to do, but all he said was that something had happened and the _Black Pearl_ would be here shortly." At Chris' bemused look, Norrington said, "I didn't know what to make of it either. I asked him what had happened, and he didn't reply. I asked him how he knew and –"

"Let me guess." Chris broke in. "He said 'sea turtles,' didn't he?"

"Precisely." Norrington replied, flabbergasted. "So what's happened?"

Chris swallowed and looked up at her brother's face. "Jack's dead." She whispered.

Norrington's jaw dropped. "What?"

"Chesed killed him two days ago after we sank the _Titan_. Chesed got away; we came here to see if you had heard any news about him and where he had gone to."

Norrington's face was still a mask of astound. "_Captain_ Jack Sparrow?"

"Yes, James, my husband is dead, alright?" Chris snapped, her voice breaking for the second time that hour and tears rushing forward. "Now you can either tell me if you know where Chesed is, or you can just go away!"

"Christiana…" He grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her and perhaps prevent her from leaving. "I am… I am so very sorry." His lips pursed with sadness and his brow furrowed. "I'm sorry, I…"

Chris buried her face into Norrington's shoulder. "I miss him, James, I miss him and I don't know what I'm going to say to the children. How am I going to tell them?" She pulled away and sniffed, wiping snot and tears from her face with her sleeve. "How can I? How will they understand?"

Norrington took his little sister by the chin and looked into her eyes with his own that matched their color. "I don't know, Christiana. And I wish I could tell you where Chesed was, but… I've resigned from my post in the Navy."

That astonished Chris enough so that her tears stopped. "What? Why?"

Norrington smiled softly. "I let your father talk me into going back to England. And with men like Chesed rising and rising fast in the Navy, I didn't want to see what they would do to it. I resigned and Gillette, my former lieutenant, has taken up my post." Chris looked to the cabin floor. She didn't know how she was going to find Chesed now. "Look at me." Norrington raised her face back up to look at him. "If I can help you, I will. I'll take care of you, Christiana."

Chris did not say anything. Instead, she simply put her arms around her brother and hugged him to her tightly. He rubbed her back and then patted it comfortingly.

Pulling away, he said, "Come on. Let's go see your father and the children." Norrington took her hand, and the pair left the _Black Pearl_ and ventured into Kingston to her father's house.

Upon arrival, the house was sheer pandemonium. Jocelyn's children ran amok with Thomas trailing, and it was a moment or so before anyone noticed that Norrington and Chris had arrived, and only then they were acknowledged with cursory glances from the children. It was several minutes before Jocelyn emerged from the kitchen, Jack-Jack on one hip and Victoria on the other. "Chris! When did you get – Oh, never mind! We've been waiting for – What's happened?"

Chris looked at her twins and back to her sister-in-law. The prospect of having to spread the news of Jack's death once more, and then try to explain to Pearl, was daunting. The quartermaster felt weak, as weak as she had ever before felt.

"Pop, Pop!" Jocelyn turned to lean back into the kitchen's doorway. "Chris is here, Pop." She turned back to Chris and said, "I'm sure you don't want to see me as much as you want to see the little ones. Here," Jocelyn handed Jack-Jack to Chris first, followed by Victoria. "Pearl's upstairs with your father and Shang… Ragetti and Sarah are somewhere, too…"

Something inside of Chris' chest cracked when she took her twins into her arms. How could she go one? How could she raise them, or raise Pearl, without their father? She sank to her knees in despair before Norrington could catch her, and she rocked back onto her rump, her children still in her arms. "Pop, Pop, get in here!" She heard Jocelyn shout. Tears poured from her eyes once more as she heard commotion and Chris sniffled.

"Jack's dead. Chesed killed him, and I can't – I can't – I can't…" Chris couldn't say what she couldn't do. She squeezed her children to her and sobbed. Teague entered from the kitchen with Rachel, Geoff, and Adanya, and Lord Thomas came to the top landing of the stairs with Pearl in one arm and his other guiding Shang. Ragetti and Sarah entered from the study hand in hand. They watched as Norrington fell to his knees beside his sister and put an arm around her shoulders.

Jocelyn's eyes became wet, and Teague's became dark. Pearl tugged on her grandfather's jacket and whispered into his ear. Lord Thomas carried his granddaughter and led her cousin down the stairs to where Chris kneeled. He looked at everyone else before saying, "Help her up, James."

Norrington helped his sister stand and took Victoria from her. Shang released Lord Thomas' hand and went to his mother, who seemed devastated at the news of her brother's death. Teague took Jack-Jack from her arms, and Norrington helped her to one of the sofas in the parlor. Chris saw now that most of the furniture had been packed up – Only the most necessary pieces remained. She sniffled as Lord Thomas came forward, Pearl still in his arms.

"Is it true, what you said?" Lord Thomas asked quietly. Chris nodded miserably, wiping the tears and snot from her face with her sleeve. Lord Thomas set Pearl onto the ground, and she scurried to the sofa and clambered onto her mother's lap, throwing her arms around her neck. "Then we're sailing out for England in a week, you can come with us –" Lord Thomas began, his voice soothing but also having an air of excitement into it.

"Just hold on a minute there." Teague growled, stepping forward and handing Jack-Jack to Jocelyn. "My son is dead, and your daughter is now a Sparrow. Her children are all Sparrows, and I'll be damned if I let you take them an ocean away so I can never see my daughter-in-law and my grandbabies ever again."

"Now is not the time." Norrington said, his tone firm. "Howard, honestly…" The former commodore's eyes were sad. "Would you have liked Harry, Allen, and Peter suggesting taking us away right after Mother died?"

"I'm not leaving until Chesed's paid for what he did." Chris said quietly. She looked at her daughter, who peered into her face with curiosity. "Could you please go? I need to speak to Pearl."

"Yes." Norrington bounced Victoria in his arms and looked at everyone else. "Let's adjourn to the kitchen for now. Jocelyn, here, lean on my arm…"

"Is Uncle Jack really gone?" Rachel whispered to one of her brothers as they filtered out.

"I don't know…" In minutes, it was only Chris and Pearl in the parlor.

"Mummy, what's happened to Daddy?" Pearl asked, her hand grasping Chris' collar.

Chris inhaled deeply, doing her best to keep everything together. "A bad man, the man who hurt Mummy here," Chris touched the scar the rope left around her throat when Pearl was but a little lass, "The bad man hurt Daddy, and Daddy won't be coming back to see us Pearl."

"Yes he will." Pearl said, releasing her hold on Chris' collar. "He said he would when you went away. He promised."

"Pearly, I know that Daddy wanted to keep that promise, but he can't. He isn't able to." Chris said, feeling her fragile emotions beginning to come apart once more.

"I don't believe you." Pearl said. "Daddy wouldn't lie to me. He's coming back."

"He didn't lie, sweetheart, he just can't –" Chris said, but Pearl would have none of it. Pearl slipped to the floor, her face screwed up in anger.

"Poppa!" She yelled for Teague, and she trundled into the kitchen without another look at her mother. Chris sighed and sank back onto the sofa. Her head sank back onto the sofa and her eyes closed. She was tired, so tired of crying, so tired of feeling this way… Within moments, she slept.

She was awoken some time later by pounding upon the door. She snorted and jerked awake just as Norrington went to answer the door. She turned to see Gillette, Norrington's former lieutenant and now the new commodore, enter the house.

"James, thank God –" Gillette began, grabbing him by the shoulders. "I don't know what to do; I simply do not know what to do!"

Norrington grabbed his old friend likewise by the shoulders. "Gillette, calm down. What is the matter?"

"Pirates, so many pirates!" Gillette pointed in the direction of the harbor. "They just started docking and-and-and they're not creating any trouble, they're just here! I don't know what to do; I don't know what to do!"

Chris stood from the sofa and looked at the two men as Norrington shook the other to bring him back to his senses. Norrington asked, "Are they attacking Kingston?" The other man stuttered. "Gillette, I will hit you to bring your sense back. Understand?"

"No!" Gillette squeaked. "They're here peaceably, but they're wanted men, but I – I don't think we have the men to take them."

Norrington released his friend and looked to his sister. "Do you know why they would be here?" Chris shook her head. Norrington sighed and looked about. "I'll come with you and see what's happening Gillette. Chris, fancy coming along?" Norrington looked to his sister as Gillette realized who she was. The new commodore blanched even more, if that was possible. Chris nodded wearily, suddenly feeling the need to be out in the fresh air. "Come along then, Commodore…" Norrington said, and the three exited the home.

The sun was setting as the trio headed down to the docks. A cool breeze blew, making Chris' skin feel refreshed. Her eyes slit closed against the sun's setting rays until they dipped down into the harbor and the ships that floated there provided some reprieve from the light. "There!" Gillette cried, pointing to an influx of ships that had all anchored around the _Black Pearl_. Chris' lips parted in surprise as she recognized the _Death Rattle_ in the harbor among the ships, but with her arrival, a seething mass of pirates surged forward. She saw Marak, Giles, and Gibbs leading them. Harry, Peter, and Allen were among the persons, as well as Robins and his gang of outlaws. Bastian from Madagascar waved from the crowd with his men. And – could it be? – Yes! There was Hector Barbossa himself! He smiled grimly as the pirates swarmed Gillette, Norrington, and Chris.

"You're – You're all under arrest!" Gillette stuttered, his face as white as his wig.

"Chris, they've heard." Gibbs said, surging forward and ignoring the new commodore, who looked as though he was going to have a fit.

"And they all came here?" Chris asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Aye." Barbossa stepped forward, and Norrington paled, realizing the man who stood before him was the pirate who, so many years ago, had pillaged Port Royale and kidnapped Elizabeth Swann. "We came to pay our respects to Captain Jack Sparrow, and you." He pulled the hat from his head and bow. "Mrs. Sparrow."

"James, help me –!" Gillette said, lurching towards Anamaria. Norrington stopped him by clapping a stern hand on his shoulder.

"Gillette, let it go."

Chris surveyed all of the pirates, all of the men and the few women who had come in respect of Jack, in respect of her husband. She felt an overwhelming sense of appreciation and gratitude for these men, these men who loved her husband. "How did you all find out?" Chris asked.

"Sea turtles." A voice said in her ear. Chris turned to find Teague and the rest of her family trailing along with him, as well as the Turners, Ragettis, and Governor Swann lagging behind them. Pearl ran forward from Jocelyn's side and grabbed her mother's hand.

Chris picked Pearl up and hugged her tightly. She turned back to the other pirates and looked to the _Black Pearl_. "Anyone fancy a rum?" Chris asked.

She was met with a resounding, "Aye!"

That night, all of the pirates, the Sparrows, Lord Thomas, Norrington, Governor Swann, and the Turners gathered together on the deck of the _Black Pearl_. The stores of rum in the belly of the _Black Pearl_ were depleted and cider was purchased from a local tavern for the children as those on board spoke of their fondest and best memories of Captain Jack Sparrow. Chris had a few laughs and made a few memories of Jack's adventures that she knew she would always treasure. Gillette had at first been adamant about going to the fort and getting more soldiers to take care of the 'pirates,' but after Jocelyn and Davy slipped something into his rum that caused him to fall asleep, there were no more worries about any form of law interrupting.

The next morning, Chris awoke nestled underneath the stairs leading up to the bridge with Pearl in her arms. Several other crewmembers were littered on the deck as well, and Chris was sure she saw Teague using the rigging in the top as a hammock. Someone had covered Chris and Pearl with a blanket, and as Chris placed the still sleeping Pearl to the side, she wrapped the blanket snugly around her daughter before climbing out from under the stairs.

"Good morning." She looked up to the wheel and found her father leaning against it, with Bootstrap at his side. Both of them were holding mugs of steaming drink and leaning over the railing looking forward.

"How long have you been up?" Chris asked, climbing up the stairs to join them.

"Long enough to watch Gillette wake up and Norrington convince him that he ate something odd and had hallucinations about all those pirates." Bootstrap said, taking a sip from his mug.

"I'm guessing Gillette didn't take a look around?" Chris asked, looking at the _Death Rattle_, the _Tout de Suite_, and Bastian's ship named the _Sea Lion_.

"You're right, he didn't." Lord Thomas replied. Slowly, the occupants of the _Black Pearl_ and the mourners from the night before woke and convened on the deck when Cotton brought out a large pot of burgoo and plenty of wooden bowls to feed all. Just as Chris finished feeding the twins with Jocelyn (they and the rest of the children had slept in the captain's cabin) and was about to wake Pearl, Norrington came scrambling up the gangplank, his jacket unbuttoned and his hat askew.

"What's going on James –?" Allen asked, but he was cut off as Norrington screeched to a halt.

"Gillette just got word – He just got word –" Norrington gasped, his chest heaving, "Gillette just got word that Chesed has announced his slaying of the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow, and the East India Trading Company is holding a celebratory gala for him in Nassau." Norrington sucked a lungful of air in. "Chesed's inviting members of the Royal Navy so he can gloat about doing what they couldn't – So he can be rewarded for killing Captain Jack Sparrow."

All eyes turned to Chris. Hearing the words, hearing that Chesed was to be congratulated with a party, and use what he had done to her husband for his advancement made her tremble with fury. With the _Black Pearl_, Chris could reach Nassau in time for the ball – In time to be in the same place at the same time as Chesed, and in doing so, she could kill the man. Her lips curled back in a snarl and her fists clenched. "I guess that means that I'll have to go congratulate him myself. Where's my rapier?"

Marty was the first of the crew of the _Black Pearl_ to let out an assenting roar, followed shortly by the rest of the crew. Pearl jerked awake underneath the stairs. Bastian stepped forward, lacking a shirt. "And I shall join you." Bastian said. "It has been quite some time since we last ran together, Chris."

"But—" Chris objected.

"We are coming too." Peter said, referring to his brothers and himself.

"And don't zink you'll be able to leave us behind!" Giles said, clapping a hand on Marak's shoulder.

"I'm signing back onto the _Pearl_!" Ragetti declared, holding his wife and son's hands tightly. Sarah had blanched, but Thomas looked excited, maybe even defiant.

"I had no great love for Captain Jack Sparrow, but seeing that you and he rescued me from death, I suppose I can tag along." Barbossa said, flourishing his fingers in the air as he rolled his eyes.

"If you need anyone to do some reconnaissance or just create a diversion," Robins said, pounding his chest, "We have you covered."

"You can't tell me," Will said, climbing down from the rigging, Elizabeth trailing him, "That you expect me to stay behind after all these others are going, can you Chris?"

Teague thumped down next to his daughter-in-law. "Looks like you have an army here, girl."

Chris looked at all those assembled who had either pledged themselves to the service of avenging her husband or had been pledged by their commanding officers. She felt a great feeling of warmth around her heart as she looked at them. She placed a hand upon her breast and then yelled, "Let's get ready to make way then, mates!"

Immediately, pirates began departing to their ships of origin to make ready to set sail. Norrington turned to Chris just as she was about to join and talk to Gibbs, but the brother stopped his sister. "Chris, I want to help, but – We're supposed to sail out in a few days, and – If I'm seen there and my ship hasn't set sail – They'll find me, Chris. They'll find me whether or not anything happens to Chesed." Norrington's eyes were earnest as he spoke his intent, and his lips were pursed with worry.

Chris pursed her lips in thought and then an idea came to her. "Then we'll just have to make sure you set sail on the ship, won't we?" She smiled at her brother and he gave her a questioning look. Chris was about to explain when she felt a tug on her sleeve and looked down to see Pearl staring up at her. "I'll explain later, just hang tight, Jamie."

As Pearl was hoisted into her mother's arms, she asked, "Are you going to leave again?"

Chris smiled sadly. "Yes, darling, but it's… I need to make sure the bad man… A bad man needs to be punished so he can't hurt anyone else, understand?"

"And then you'll bring Daddy back?" Pearl asked.

Chris sighed. She didn't think Pearl would understand until she was older, and until then… "Come on, sweetheart, let's get you some burgoo."

Plans were laid that night for the voyage to Nassau. The _Black Pearl_, despite the white sails and the fake name would be too recognizable to sail upon, and she also had all of the plundered gold still aboard. It would be too much work to unload all of the gold and find somewhere safe to store it, so it was decided that Teague, Jocelyn, Davy (who was no warrior, he was the first to admit – but Chris personally thought it was because he fancied Jocelyn), Loki, and the children would stay in Kingston aboard the _Black Pearl_ until the return of the crew. Also, while Chris didn't say it out loud to Pearl, there was the chance that she and all those with her would not return. With the solders of the East India Trading Company and the Royal Navy personnel that could be present, they could experience heavy casualties. Chris, Teague, and Jocelyn sat down and agreed that if they didn't return within a week, they were to sail to the Devil's Throat and Shipwreck City where Pearl, Jack-Jack, and Victoria would be safe from the wrath of Chesed and the Royal Navy. The gold would be saved if there were any survivors. The survivors would get a share and the rest would be kept for the children until they were older.

So it was decided that all those who sought to avenge Captain Jack Sparrow's death would sail aboard the _Death Rattle_ and the _Sea Lion_, two ships of no great import in the Caribbean. It was also decided that Lord Thomas and Norrington would set sail upon the ship heading for England. They would enter their cabin and shout not to be disturbed until they were a week or so out at sea. In the dead of the first night, Norrington would leave the cabin during the changing of the watch and throw himself overboard along with a floating barrel only to be picked up by the _Death Rattle_, which would follow the ship closely and retrieve the former commodore once the ship bound for England was out of sight. It was risky, but Norrington wanted to help. As long as everything went smoothly, the _Sea Lion_ would pretend to be a damaged ship in the England-bound ship's path and, while there would be communication between the two ships, Norrington would sneak back aboard and into his cabin. This way, if anyone did recognize the former commodore, he had an air-tight alibi to prevent him from getting into trouble.

Chris said her farewells to her children, her in-laws, and her father the morning the two ships were bound to leave Kingston. She did not dwell on the possibility of it being the last time she saw her family. No, they would see each other again. She had entrusted Jack's hat, coat, and ring to Jocelyn though, just in case, with letters to each of her children if the worst happened. Jack-Jack and Victoria were too small to understand what was happening, and they were too small to remember Chris or Jack, but their mother said goodbye to them with soothing words and kisses.

"When you bring Daddy back, you should bring a friend back for Loki too." Pearl said as her mother kneeled before her. Loki was sitting besides Pearl, being too big to ride upon her shoulders.

Chris smiled sadly and thumbed her daughter's cheek. "Pearly, can you make me a promise?"

"'Course, Mummy." Pearl replied.

"Until I get back, look over your brother and sister? Can ye do that for me?" Chris asked.

"Isn't that what a big sister does?" Pearl asked earnestly.

Her mother laughed. "I suppose it is." She hugged her daughter. "I love you, Pearly."

Pearl kissed her mother on the cheek. "I love you too, Mummy."

Chris straightened up and whistled. Loki ran up her trouser leg and perched on her shoulder. Chris stroked his fur and said, "Ye've been great to me, mate. I've never regretted findin' you." She plucked the small ape from her shoulder and held him so that they could see eye to eye. "But now might be the time we part ways." The monkey chattered questioningly. "Make sure ye don't raise too much Hell with the kids if I don't come back, alright?" She whispered. Loki cooed and reached forward. Chris held the monkey to her chest and he nuzzled her chin. "That's a good boy."

Chris said her goodbyes to Jocelyn, Teague, and Davy and boarded the _Death Rattle_. She and the _Sea Lion_ departed Kingston's harbor together and only parted momentarily so that the _Death Rattle_ could tail the frigate bound for England. Besides the crewmembers of the _Black _Pearl, the _Death _Rattle held its three joint captains, Will and Bootstrap, and Robins and his band. When Norrington was retrieved that night, they also found that Elizabeth had stowed away without Will's knowledge. After a very sharp and heated discussion between the husband and wife, Elizabeth declared that Will would have done the same thing, and he relented that he would have.

Later that night, Jack was dancing around in circles with a huge bear. Chris looked onward from the audience as they turned round and round... And then there was a hand offered to her. She looked up and saw that it was Jack. "Jack..." She spoke his name as he pulled her onto the stage and danced round and round with her. "Jack, what is this?" She asked, but Jack either hadn't heard her or he ignored her. Loki dropped from nowhere and took up dancing with the huge bear as Jack spun Chris round and round, faster and faster. Chris saw flashes of the couples who were suddenly dancing around her: Will and Elizabeth, Isabella and Ziph, Beckett and Chesed, Adam and the mermaid Narissa, Caprice and Robert, faster and faster as a sinister music boomed in her ears. Jack spun her one final time and then leaned her back. Chris looked up into Jack's face as the flesh fell from it, revealing a rotting corpse beneath.

"_JACK_!" Chris screamed as she opened her eyes, finding herself in her hammock in the hold of the _Death Rattle_. Her skin was covered in an icy sweat and her chest was heaving for want of breath. She realized that it had been a dream, only a dream.

"Chris? Chris, you alright?" Will sat up from his hammock, which hung nearby, and leaned over to peek into hers. Elizabeth's hammock was right beside Will's, and she joined her husband in looking to Chris. Several others stirred, and Bootstrap hopped from his hammock and crossed to Chris'.

"I had a dream… And Jack…" Chris swallowed and resolved into tears. She felt totally helpless, just as she did when Jack was slain. Even though they were on a voyage to avenge his death, Chris had been wondering what happened when they succeeded? Would she simply return to Kingston and raise her children alone, always pining for the love of her life? The dream was the first in days that had featured Jack, and his presence made Chris' heart ache anew. "I want him back, I want him so much." She covered her face and tried to quell the tears that came anyway.

"Come Chris, you need some of the sea air." Bootstrap half-pulled half-drug Chris from her hammock and helped her to unsteady feet. As the two passed through the columns of hammocks, all the occupants regarded them with reverence. Bootstrap put a fatherly arm around the widow as they ascended the stairs and exited onto the main deck. It was very late or very early, and the only people about were those attending watches or navigation. Harry was at the helm, but with a look from Bootstrap and a confirmation from Chris that it was alright, he stayed at his place. "I'm sorry, Bootstrap, it's just – It's like my chest has been ripped open, and I'm sorry to waken everyone like some damn woman—"

She was cut off. "It's hard Chris, I know it is." Bootstrap confided in Chris as he led her to one of the highly polished rails warding out the sea. "When I was on the bottom of the ocean, I knew, or at least though, that I'd never see me Will or his mother ever again, and it was like I ate broken glass. I don't know how much time I spent down there being wracked by torment and hopelessness." He looked out at the sea with a wistful look. "Then the leather that held me to the cannon eventually weakened enough that, with a bit of broken shell, I was able to get free. I'll not say that it made me think that I'd see them once I surfaced, but it was an improvement. When I reached that island, I still didn't hope to see them again. Then came you Chris." He nodded to her. "And everything was right again. Now I'm the fat and sassy granddad of four of the most beautiful children I've ever seen. I never dreamed of such things down there on the ocean floor, I couldn't have."

"What are you getting at, Bootstrap?" Chris asked, sniffing.

"Even when it appears that everything is lost, it isn't Chris. You'll see Jack again, at least in the afterlife, just as I know I'll see Will's mum once more." Bootstrap smiled. "I just want you to know, that even in the darkest times, the most miserable places, there is always hope. You should get some."

Chris smiled meekly at the older man. "Thank you, Bootstrap. You're a good friend, and a good man."

Bootstrap smiled. "Not as good as Jack."

Within days, the _Death Rattle_ and the _Sea Lion_ arrived at Nassau. The three uncles still had their purchased legality with the British crown, and the _Sea Lion_ was wanted mostly in Dutch and French ports, not British. The two ships docked without a fuss after their fees were paid. Norrington went into port and learned that the gala (which would be a masked gala, it turned out) would be held the following night after the sun went down. He also learned that the gala would be held in the home of one of the East India Trading Company's loyal subjects, and so Robins and some of his men went to scout out the place.

The home was surrounded by a garden wall, creating a courtyard. The courtyard was the place where the gala would be held proper, but the main house would also serve as a place Chesed could retreat to. The lower level of the house had a large veranda encircling it, but two staircases led up from the courtyard to the second level, around which was a terrace that led to several doorways. The veranda, staircase, and terrace presented many opportunities to enter the house, if need be.

And since it was to be a masquerade gala, Giles and Marak headed into port and bought trunks full of disguises, including wigs, fake mustaches, and hats. The disguises for the following day were picked out, and alterations were made to the skirts of the gowns that Elizabeth, Anamaria, and Chris would wear. They figured that if they all traipsed in with a copious amount of weapons, suspicions would arise, so the skirts were altered so that they could hang weapons from the hoops and smuggle them inside the gala.

The next evening, a good deal of people disembarked from the two ships, all richly dressed, costumed, and masked. Chris wore a red wig and a high-collared dress to hide the scar the rope left upon her throat and the upside-down pirate brand gracing the back of her neck. The women moved rather slowly due to the weapons hidden up their skirts. A liberal amount of padding had also been added so that the weapons wouldn't clank together. The rest of the pirates were waiting aboard the ships with the cannons primed and ready to fire upon the port should the worst happen. Barbossa and Bastian were in charge of the attack upon the port.

The group entered the courtyard in three separate chunks. Both East India Trading Company soldiers and Royal Navy sailors were waiting outside the gates to take names, but Norrington had the man who led each group (Giles, Gibbs, and himself) assume the identity of a Royal Navy official who would be unable to make the event, and the three groups were able to enter the courtyard and integrate. The decorations were lavish. Lanterns were strung through the air, casting light on the wooden dance floor that had been laid in the center. Tables bordered the dance floor, and a long table groaning with food and drink sat close to the courtyard wall. Chris' eyes glittered behind her mask as she noted that veranda on the first level and the two staircases leading to the second.

The women slyly retrieved the weapons in their skirts by sitting at a table and passing weapons off to their comrades as they walked by. Once the weapons had been doled out and hidden in jackets, tall boots, or trouser legs, Norrington looked to Gibbs and Giles. "You know what to do." With that, the three groups separated. Giles, Robins, and Marak's group went to the left of the courtyard. Gibbs, Elizabeth, and the crew of the _Black Pearl_ went to the right, and Norrington, the three uncles, Chris, Bootstrap, and Will cut through the center. The left group's purpose was to eliminate security threats. The right group was responsible for clearing the exit. Chris' group was to find Chesed and kill him.

Chris' group fanned out so not to draw attention. "Excuse me..." Chris tapped on the back of a man in servant's livery. He turned to her, and she began to purr in her best Melody-and-Isabella impression. "Might you know where the Admiral is? I would like nothing more than to give him a _very special_ gift for his accomplishment." She said the words as amorously as possible to give the servant a false idea of the 'gift' she meant to give. He stuttered a bit and pointed up into the estate's building. Chris chucked him on the chin. "Thank you."

Chris jerked her head towards to her group and then to the building and went to cut across the dance floor. She was suddenly grabbed by one of the dancers and incorporated into the current dance. She was spun and twirled rather clumsily, and saw that her assailant wore the mask of a type of bird. This drunkard was wasting time, and Chris could not afford that. "Sir, I do not wish—" She began rather sharply, but the man put one arm around her waist as he spun her and pulled up his mask with his free hand. She saw a familiar mischievous smile and she felt as though the dream with the dancing bear was coming true. She panicked.

"Jack! No –" Her partner released her, and Chris fell back into the surrounding crowd, blanching. Allen rushed to her alone, so as not to draw any more attention.

"What's wrong, Chris?" Allen asked, pulling her to her feet. "She's alright!" He proclaimed to the crowd. "Had a bit too much wine, I think…" That caused disdainful looks and many in the crowd to turn away. Allen began pulling her towards the house, and Harry joined his brother.

"Jack! I saw him, he's right there—" Chris pointed to the dance floor, searching for the bird-masked man. She couldn't find him. "I swear, he was there, he grabbed me!"

Harry joined his brother and niece in time to hear her proclamations. "Chris, _belle_, I zink you're just under too much strezz. Maybe you should return to ze ship –" Harry offered, looking to see who might escort her from the gala.

"No, no I'm fine." Chris said, collecting herself. She had a job to do – She was either going to kill Chesed or die trying. "Let's go into the second level." She whispered. "If we don't find him there, we can filter down from inside, draw less attention that way." By now, the rest of their group had joined them, and her intentions were made known.

"We need to go up in pairs or one at a time." Norrington whispered. "They'll notice if seven people stomp up the stairs all at once."

"Aye." Chris said. She looked to her comrades. "Bootstrap, you come with Norrington and I. Make it look like you're supporting me because I've had too much to drink. Uncle Harry, Will, you follow once we're out of vision, and then you, uncles." The men nodded and Chris went slack, causing her brother and Bootstrap to grab a hold of her and begin taking her up the stairs. As soon as her feet hit the floor of the terrace she straightened up, and she and her friends hurriedly walked along the terrace towards the posterior of the house. They were out of sight of the gala below, but the music and sounds of revelry followed them. Minutes later, Will and Harry joined them, followed shortly by Peter and Allen.

"Arm yourselves." Bootstrap said. The men pulled their concealed weapons from their boots and jackets. Chris plucked the red wig off of her head and removed a pistol from inside the hairpiece. She set the wig next to the terrace railing before pulling her skirt up and removing her rapier and belt from the hoops.

"You couldn't wear shoes for this?" Norrington asked, looking at her bare feet.

"James, I am holding a rapier and I will stab you in the face." There were some low chuckles at that, and Chris' eyes scanned the length of the terrace. All doors were closed but one. "Let's start there." Chris lowered her voice, strapped her rapier around her waist, and led the way.

They entered the room and found themselves in a study. The floor was highly polished wood, and there were shelves upon shelves of books inside, as well as potted plants and a rich desk. No one was present, but the low rumble of voices in the closed door leading to the next room caught everyone's attention. Chris tiptoed to the door to the room and nudged it open a fraction of an inch. The voices poured out distinct and loud.

"And when will I receive my reward from the East India Trading company? After this delightful gala, I presume?" Chesed's smug voice asked.

"Not to worry, friend, you'll get it soon enough. You've rid me of a great thorn in my side, Admiral, and I remember my friends." A familiar voice replied. Chris wracked her memory and realized it was Lord Cutler Beckett, the man who had left the scar upon the back of her neck. She swallowed hard and threw the door open as what sounded like cannon and gun fire echoed through the air outside. Apparently, Barbossa and Bastian were tired of waiting.

Chris leaped into the room and quickly cased the place. The room had a desk, two armchairs, several large potted plants, and bookcases lining the room. Chesed and Beckett sat in the armchairs dressed to the nines and looked up in astound as the six men poured in behind Chris. Chris noticed Beckett had a good deal of powder on his forehead to hide what had happened when he tried to remove the tar-sealed canvas from his forehead. Her pistol was trained on Chesed's head and his ice blue eyes. Peter took the hilt of his sword and banged it against Beckett's head to make him see stars before the lord could move.

"Your security isn't worth manure, Chesed!" Beckett raged, putting a hand up to the back of his skull.

"My security?" Chesed shrieked incredulously.

"Oh, shut up girls!" Allen commanded, brandishing his sword.

Chesed's eyes trained upon Chris. "Hello, Mrs. Sparrow." He growled.

"I assumed you know what I'm here to do, then." Chris replied. "You've hurt my family for the last time, and I promise, you live to regret the day you killed –"

"Captain Jack Sparrow?" A figure stepped from behind a large potted plant right next to an open window at the end of the room. Chris' heart leapt up into her throat as the person stepped into the light and pulled off the bird mask that covered his face to reveal the face of none other than her husband, Captain Jack Sparrow. Chris' arm went slack and Chesed saw that to his advantage. Faster than lightning, he bent, rushed forward, and placed his arms around her waist. He tipped her to the floor and wrestled the gun from her hand. He grabbed onto her hair and shoved her head down, pointing the gun at the back of her head.

"Indeed." He said wickedly. The admiral turned to Jack, who almost looked surreal. "Call these people off or her brains will be coming out of her forehead." He warned.

Jack looked unperturbed, but he said, "Settle down mates." The pirates in the room shifted anxiously from foot to foot. Beckett lay prostrate on the floor, looking unsure whether he should help Chesed or stay still, and now with the development of Jack being present, he just looked bewildered.

"How the Hell are you alive?" Chesed demanded to know. Chris' hand slowly made her way down her skirt, unnoticed by Chesed. Her hand disappeared underneath the hem and she pulled it up just a bit.

"Well, it's quite a long story." Jack smirked. "One I don't wish to tell right now, particularly to the man who stuck his sword in my gut and wrenched it." He tutted. "_Honestly_, admiral…"

"It would have bought you time, Sparrow." Chesed cocked the pistol and aimed it at Jack's head. Chris pulled the dagger strapped to her leg from its scabbard and with one smooth motion, swooped upwards and planted it in Chesed's throat. He let out a gurgle and his aim went to the side of Jack as he let off the shot and fell backwards. Beckett panicked and began sliding on the floor towards the door, but Bootstrap grabbed him by the collar, picked him up, and slammed him to the floor once more. The lord let out a pained groan.

Chesed let out another gurgle as blood continued blooming from his throat, but his ice blue eyes soon grew still. "Jack..." Chris stood, leaving Chesed's still twitching and bleeding corpse on the ground behind her. Her hand and dress were splotched with his blood, but she didn't care. She took a few cautious steps towards her husband and held out her clean hand to touch him. "Is it... are you really...?" This couldn't be a dream. If it was a dream, Chris wouldn't be able to take it.

Jack took her hand and kissed the fingertips. "Aye, love." He pulled her to him and held her against him as if she was the only thing in this world. He kissed her lips again and again as she cried into his shirt. She couldn't be dreaming, he felt so real... And now she was acting like a damn woman. _Again_.

"H-how?" Chris whispered into his ear, her face imploring him for an answer.

"That is too long a story to disclose now, Chris." Several explosions echoed in the air. "And by the sound of it, we have to leave in a hurry." He nodded to the men that had accompanied Chris. "My thanks gentlemen! If you'd be so kind as to secure Mr. Beckett and bring him along…" Bootstrap grinned and hog tied the lord using his own belt before swinging him onto his shoulders. Jack took Chris' arm and the whole group retraced their steps down to the courtyard, which was mass hysteria. Guests were screaming, tables were overturned, and there was fighting raging all around. Chris saw Athos run a man wearing Navy blues through, and Ragetti leaped upon the back of a man who had driven Cotton and his parrot into a corner. His leap was enough diversion so that Marty could run forward and plant a bullet in the sailor's chest.

Giles was in the corner of the courtyard, and as he saw his friend who he thought deceased, his face became shocked. "Jacques!" He parried a blow and stuck his sword into his adversary. Once he fell, Giles turned to his friend. "Can it be?"

"Aye, and I suggest we leave this party as it appears we have overstayed our welcome!" Jack replied. Giles left his defeated enemy and he was one of many who surged forth to merge with the group Jack now led. From the back of the courtyard, Robins and Marak's group emerged bloody and wounded with Robins carrying a wounded Marak on his back. Everyone voiced disbelief seeing Captain Jack Sparrow alive and well, but there was little time for exclamations and talking. Jack led the pirates from the estate with a mighty war cry. The _Death Rattle_ and _Sea Lion_ had both opened fire on Nassau, and with the sane people staying inside or searching for cover, no one attempted to stop them.

"I wish we had more time…" Jack mused. "I once sacked this port without firing a single shot, did ye know that?" Jack asked Norrington, his chest puffing out in pride.

"Jack, you can gloat later." Chris said, hanging onto his arm and fully intending to never let go.

"I would like to hear the story from your point of view –" Norrington replied.

"_Men_, I swear!" Anamaria exclaimed from somewhere nearby. Without any more trouble or discussion, the pirates made it to the docks, loaded onto their ships, and sailed away from Nassau, victorious in their defeat of a tyrant of the seas, and jubilant at the return of one of their own, whom they thought dead.

"Where's Beckett?" Jack demanded as the ships sailed. "Where is he?"

There was a yell from the man as Bootstrap chucked the hog-tied lord forward. He landed on the deck hard and skidded a few inches. "Someone bring me a lantern!" Jack yelled.

"What are you going to do?" Beckett asked. "What are you going to do?"

"Patience is a virtue, Cutty." Jack said as Pintel brought forward a lantern. He plucked the Spanish flower ring from his finger and held it by the facing as he stuck the ring into the flame. "Now Cutty, hiring a scallywag like Chesed to take care of me is just a cowardly action." He pulled the ring from the fire as it glowed red. "I think the whole world should know just what you are. Hold him tight!"

Will, Ragetti, and Anamaria held Beckett still as Jack kneeled next to the man and applied the red-hot metal to his cheek. The heated part of the ring branded a "C" for 'Coward' into his flesh. Beckett shrieked in pain and writhed in his bonds. There was a cracking noise as the leather that held him broke, and he jerked away from the ring, though the damage was already done to his cheek. Quicker than a flash, Becket wriggled away from those holding him and, seeing pirates surrounding him on either side, he promptly ran to the bulkhead and pitched over into the darkness. A resounding splash echoed up from below.

"Do ye want us to send out the jolly boats for him, Captain?" Gibbs asked, turning to Jack.

"Nah, let him sink or swim." Jack laughed. "We'd best get as far away from Nassau as we can before any of the East India Trading Company or Royal Navy decide to give pursuit."

"We have to get James back over to the _Sea Lion_, though, so he doesn't miss his ship." Chris said, looking at the ship sailing abreast with them.

"Not before I tell him the story of how I sacked Nassau!" Jack declared.

The _Death Rattle _and the _Sea Lion_ pulled up broadside of each other shortly, but they did not anchor or grapple to each other in case there was pursuit. Bastian swung over and said, "It's a pity you showed up, Jack. I was going to make a move on your girl after we succeeded, and I'm fairly sure she would have gone for it."

"Bastian, why on earth would she make up for the loss of a frigate with a dinghy?" Jack replied. The crew of the _Black Pearl_ roared with laughter.

Marak had recovered enough from his wounds for the moment (which included several cuts to his arms and a bullet in his leg) to ask, "Just how are you alive, Jack?"

Jack looked sideways at his wife who looked at him expectantly. "Well…" He began, "We had plundered a ship several days before that had a belly full of gold. With that gold, I also found a stone chest full of golden medallions I had seen before."

"No!" Will, Elizabeth, and Barbossa chimed in astonishment at the same time.

Jack laughed. "Aye! It was the same chest as had been at the cursed Isla de Muerta, filled with the cursed Aztec gold. 'Well, that's interesting,' I thought to meself, and figured I'd find out what to do with it later, so I put it out of my mind.

"And then Chesed attacked. With all that cursed gold aboard our ship, I decided to pluck a medallion from it. This medallion, in fact." Jack extracted a golden coin from inside his sleeve and rolled it along his fingers. "I figured if worse came to worst, I could at least make sure Chesed was dead and make sure my crew could get out alive. That backfired on me." His expression softened and he took his wife's hand, squeezing it. "So I played dead, long enough so that I could find Chesed and kill him, making sure that he wouldn't bother any honest pirate ever again."

"But how did I get your effects?" Chris asked.

"Ah." Jack grinned. "I stowed away on the _Black Pearl_ after I sank into the sea. I knew how upset you were, love, I wanted to try and comfort you. I'm glad to see you believe I was a dream even though I was leaking water all over the place." He chuckled. "I stowed away on the _Sea Lion_ instead of the _Death Rattle_, which is how I knew that whole 'dinghy' thing about Bastian –" The other man blushed as Jack continued, "And I simply followed you all to the gala before stealing a mask and making myself known."

"Jack, you slippery eel!" Gibbs exclaimed, laughing.

"Now, I think we'd best head back to Kingston, cash in our gold, and let me pay my blood debt so I can stop being so damned numb all the time. What do ye say, mates?" The crew roared in assent, and Bastian made ready to return to his ship, Norrington with him.

"James." Chris called. She squeezed her husband's hand and crossed to her brother as he grabbed a line. "James, thank you. Thank you so much for coming, for helping."

Norrington smiled as he coiled the line around his hands a few time. "I had to make sure my little sister was taken care of, didn't I?" He asked. "And now, I'm sure you're quite taken care of, even if I am an ocean away." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "If you're ever in England…"

"Oh, that'll be the day." Chris laughed. "Tell my father I said goodbye. Or tell him whatever you wish, as long as there's a farewell in there somewhere."

James laughed. "Goodbye, Thimble."

"Goodbye Jamie." With that, Bastian and Norrington swung over to the _Sea Lion_, and Chris returned to her husband.

"I've been thinkin', love." Jack said, putting an arm around her. "I think we need a change of scenery, what do ye say?"

"We've been in the Caribbean since we met, Jack." Chris said. "I'm not so sure –"

Jack laughed. "Did ye ever think all that has happened would happen back at the beginning? We've been through quite a ride, Chris."

"I suppose we have." Chris smiled.

"Well, I simply think we're at the end of our chapter here in the Caribbean and we'd best start a new one somewhere else." Jack grinned. "There's a whole load of adventures awaiting not just us, but the kiddies as well. What do you say?"

"Let's talk about it." Chris smiled, and she and Jack went to join the others in making sail for Kingston.

The _Black Pearl_ rolled gently in the harbor of Kingston as Pearl woke up one morning. She looked in the bed beside her at all of her cousins still slumbering, and over to the table of the captain's cabin where her Poppa Teague was sprawled out, snoring. Auntie Joccy was nowhere to be seen, nor was Doc Davy, but neither were the twins, so they must have been tending them somewhere else. Pearl's stomach rumbled and she decided to head for the galley and get a banana from the ceiling. She, Geoff, and Adanya had discovered that if they used the poker for the fire and stood on the table, they could knock anything they wanted to from the ceiling. Pearl slipped from the bed and padded over to the door, her hair a black tangle of curls, and her nightshirt baggy and reaching well beneath her knees.

As she padded onto the deck, she heard the gangplank creak and footsteps coming up the wood. She wondered if Auntie Joccy and Doc Davy had gone into port, but when she saw the faces of her mother and father emerge from the gangplank with their crew and friends following, Pearl's face brightened and a large grin slipped onto her lips.

"I told you you'd bring back Daddy, Mummy!" Pearl said, running up to her father. He hooked his hands under her arms and hoisted her into the airs, kissing her face.

"Silly me for doubting you." Chris said as Loki dropped from the rigging and onto her shoulder. Loki chattered happily and rubbed against her ear "Happy to see you too, mate." Chris said.

"Yes, Mummy is so silly." Jack said, putting Pearl on his hip as Jocelyn and Davy, carrying the twins, emerged from the forecastle.

"Jack!" Jocelyn's jaw dropped as she looked upon her brother, who she thought was dead, standing before her.

"And just what were you doin' in the forecastle with my sister, Davy?" Jack demanded.

Davy blanched and began trembling. "N-nothing. J-just feeding the twins."

Jack laughed and looked at his eldest daughter. Davy looked relieved to no longer be under his scrutiny. "Pearl darling, yer mum and I were thinking about putting up residence somewhere else. How do you feel about that, honey?"

"Where are we going?" Pearl asked.

"How do you feel about Singapore?" Chris asked, accepting Victoria and Jack-Jack from Jocelyn and Davy.

"Sounds good to me!" Pearl responded. Teague then emerged from the captain's cabin, his grandchildren in tow, and he took Jack's reappearance in stride. The family was finally united once more, and in the light of a Caribbean morning, the Sparrows and their family and friends rejoiced for the life given back to them, and the joyous lives of all that were sure to follow.

oOo

We were strangers starting out on our journey  
Never dreaming what we'd have to go through  
Now here we are and I'm suddenly standing  
At the beginning with you

No one told me I was going to find you  
Unexpected what you did to my heart  
When I lost hope you were there to remind me  
This is the start

And Life is a road and I want to keep going  
Love is a river I want to keep flowing  
Life is a road now and forever  
A Wonderful journey

I'll be there when the world stops turning  
I'll be there when the storm is through  
In the end I wanna be standing  
At the beginning with you

We were strangers on a crazy adventure  
Never dreaming how our dreams would come true  
Now here we stand unafraid of the future  
At the beginning with you

And Life is a road and I want to keep going  
Love is a river I want to keep flowing  
Life is a road now and forever  
A Wonderful journey

I knew there was somebody somewhere  
Like me alone in the dark  
I know that my dream will live on  
I've been waiting so long  
Nothing's gonna tear us apart

And Life is a road and I want to keep going  
Love is a river I want to keep flowing  
Life is a road now and forever  
A Wonderful journey

In the end I wanna be standing at the beginning with you...


End file.
